Telangana Revenue Employees Services Association has expressed unhappiness over Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao terming the Revenue Department as corrupt and that a new Revenue Act is required to cleanse it.
A meeting should also be convened with the Revenue department employees to discuss the new Act. The government should not unilaterally formulate a new Revenue Act and demanded that an expert committee be constituted for formulating the new legislation.
The Association held a meeting here on Tuesday with revenue employees from all districts, employees of Chief Commissioner of Land Administration and leaders of all associations of revenue employees. The meeting, chaired by Revenue Employees Association president Vanga Ravinder Reddy and attended by general secretary M. Narayana Reddy, said the Chief Minister had convened a meeting with high-level officials four days ago and decided to bring in Conclusive Land Title Act. The revenue department employees too supported it and were in favour of an effective revenue Act that could not be manipulated.
The employees, however, sought to know if Telangana was to be made a corruption-free State, would it be enough to revamp only the Revenue department. “Corruption is prevalent in all departments and there are corrupt employees in every department,” they pointed out.
Chief Minister recently appreciated the revenue employees for working hard during the updation of land revenue records and had even announced one-month salary as bonus. “Now, the CM himself is maligning the revenue department and the employees,” they regretted.
The employees said 94% of land records were cleaned and updated and no farmer lodged any complaint. A comprehensive land survey should be taken up in the State and survey stones should be fixed. There were many cases where land belonged to one but it was in others’ name in the records. They demanded that the Dharani website should be made tahsildar friendly and the land records in the B category would have to updated.
The meeting also opposed the concept of Telangana State Administrative Service as it could create many problems for the employees who came into the revenue department through hard work. They would also oppose delegating revenue department functions to the private sector. The employees disagreed with the proposal of the Chief Minister to give full responsibility to Ministers. They felt that public would benefit by giving full responsibility and powers to the district Collectors. If the powers were given to Ministers, only a section of people would benefit, they said.
