The Revenue department officials are said to have disposed of 24,778 out of the more than 2.43 lakh grievances related to lapses on the Dharani portal in the past couple of weeks.
Majority of these cleared applications are said to have been rejected with officials not mentioning any specific grounds for rejection even as grievances pertaining to lapses on Dharani portal continue to pour in. Chief Commissioner of Land Administration Navin Mittal has reportedly launched a broadside against district collectors, RDOs and senior officials of the Revenue department for slow pace of resolution of pending Dharani applications.
“Disposal of the applications is being construed as their resolution by the staff. There has to be a provision for issuing speaking orders clarifying the grounds on which the applications have been rejected,” a member of the high power committee, constituted to study the functioning of Dharani portal and recommend measures for making it more effective and people-friendly, told The Hindu.
He said there should be checks and balances in the implementation of the process and issue of speaking orders orders along with rejection will enable applicants to go for an appeal. “Hopefully, the proposed new Record of Rights Act will have the provision along with an internal mechanism to address the grievance of landowners,” he said.
The member explained that Mr. Mittal’s instructions to expedite clearance of pending applications has no doubt ignited the heat from the top. “But, there has to be a mechanism where applicants can question the grounds of rejection of their applications. This will ensure that there is heat from the bottom too making the process more effective,” he said.
Interestingly, the process of clearing the applications has come to a grinding halt since the issuance of notification for the recent Lok Sabha elections as the officials stopped the process on the ground that they were assigned election-related duties. The CCLA issued orders halting the special drive launched for clearing Dharani applications, not the regular process of disposal of the already received applications, it is learnt.
Mr. Navin Mittal, during a video conference with district collectors and other senior officials on Saturday, expressed his dissatisfaction over the tardy pace of disposal of pending applications. He said though he had issued orders for expeditiously disposing of the pending applications during his previous video conference, there was no notable progress. “What are Tahsildars and RDOs doing?” Mr. Mittal questioned.
He was particularly annoyed that officials concerned could not clear 37 applications in a week in some instances while the progress in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri, Nizamabad and Medchal-Malkajgiri districts was not up to the expectations. There were 800 applications relating to mutations pending in one district indicating the seriousness of the officials concerned, he reportedly said without naming the district.
Applications pertaining to intimations from the court were kept pending while those received during the Praja Vani programme too were not being seriously taken up by the officials going by the number of those disposed of till date. Of the total applications, 1.48 lakh were said to be pending at the Tahsildar level, RDOs (53,478), additional collectors (20,451) and district collectors (12,405).
Officials said several districts like Vikarabad, Karimnagar, Medchal-Malkajgiri, Nalgonda, Rangareddy, Sangareddy and Siddipet reported few thousands of pending applications and these included the applications received during the Praja Vani programme.
