The State government has slashed the rentals payable to private cars hired by tahsildars for official duties by 30% in the third quarter of the current financial year from October to December.
The Chief Commissioner of Land Administration issued proceedings to the treasury on November 28 allocating a budget of ₹ 3.55 crore for 569 vehicles hired by tahsildars of 589 mandals across the State for the three-month period.
The Collectors were asked to see that the amount is not misappropriated by claiming fake bills.
Sources said the cut on hire charges was taken in view of fund crunch which has also affected several other services in the revenue and other departments. For instance, the fuel charges of government cars allotted to Revenue Divisional Officers (RDOs) and the remuneration of computer operators employed for land records updation were also not being paid.
The government had as usual allocated ₹ 34,000 per car per month on an average in the first two quarters of this financial year, but by allocating ₹ 3.55 crore in the third quarter -- drastically reduced the charges to ₹ 20,819 per car per month. The allocation covered hire charges, fuel allowance and maintenance.
As the government did not release the budget in time to pay to car owners, many of them did not let out the vehicles. As a result, the tahsildars purchased cars and claimed the money from treasury, sources added.
No fuel allowance
On the other hand, all the RDOs who are the divisional executive magistrates in the State had government cars but they did not get fuel allowance for the last nine months in this year.
Therefore, they diverted the money for fuel from land acquisition budget and other heads of accounts.
V. Ravinder Reddy, president, Telangana Revenue Employees Association, told The Hindu that the fund crunch owing to economic slowdown had not only impacted transportation of tahsildars and RDOs but payment of salaries of computer operators in their offices.
There were about 600 computer operators in the offices of tahsildars, RDOs and Collectorates who were not paid salaries for the past four months.
They were appointed on a monthly salary of ₹ 10,000 in the wake of updation of land records from September 15 to December-end 2017. Another 75 supervisors to oversee the work of operators were also appointed with a salary of ₹ 20,000 per month but they too did not get salaries.
