Analytical Note on Revenue Attachment

Analytical Note on Revenue Attachment
Saumitra Mohan

As part of my revenue attachment, I was attached to the offices of the District Registrar and District Land & Land Reforms Officer of the district of Jalpaiguri.

As obvious, the office of the District Registrar is saddled with the normal and routine work of registration of different types at different prescribed rates as is the norm throughout the country including those of landed property, partitioning or gifting thereof, power of attorney of all types, gifts of all types officially starting at the nominal value of Rs. 100/- and marriages (both under Special Marriage Act, 1966 and Hindu Marriage Act, 1955) as well as assessment and collection of building tax. However, the licensed private practitioners who get certain percentages of the transaction money as their fees also register marriages.

The respective Sub-Divisional Officer, District Magistrate and Divisional Commissioner control district Registrar and Sub-Divisional Registrar. There are various powers under the Registration Act, which have been given to and exercised by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Additional District Magistrate, District Magistrate and Divisional Commissioner. These powers inter alia relate to those of supervision, disciplining, valuation of property in cases of dispute, power of summoning parties for dispute settlement, regulation and prevention of illegal activities of touts. Sub-Divisional Officer because of being the Collector works as the Deputy Inspector General of Registration. The District Magistrate also doubles up as ex-officio Additional Inspector General of Registration and Commissioner of Stamp Revenue. It is to be noted here that all these non-judicial stamps are kept in the District Treasury’s strong room under the overall supervision of the District Magistrate. Divisional Commissioner is the appellate authority for the decisions given by the Collector.

But there are also many problems related to the functioning of the office of the District Registrar and if these problems are well taken care of, it would not only lead to the overall performance of this office, but it would also result in further revenue earning as well as a lot more convenient for the staff and the common people.

While we all hear about the scams related to fake stamps and mammoth financial losses to the government exchequer on that account, it seems government is still to do anything to prevent its recurrence, at least, for the moment and at the ground level. While there have been communications to this office about detecting and preventing-preempting any fraud related to fake and forged stamps, but there has been no directions as to how to go about it. As a result, the office of the District Registrar does not know as to how to tell a genuine stamp paper from a fake one. There exist no directions, no measures and no mechanism to deal with any such thing.
Again, even though the office of the District Registrar here in Jalpaiguri is more or less free from corruption, there have been some stray cases of under valuation of property causing pecuniary losses to the government. The office earns a hefty revenue of 16 crores of rupees for the government exchequer but the infrastructure provided is very poor and leave much to be desired.

Also, the way records are kept leaves much to be desired. Though records are still free from the white ants’ menace, but these records are too important to be maintained in the old-fashioned way, more so in the damp and moist climate of Jalpaiguri. Even though the higher authorities are contemplating computerisation of these records, the idea is still to translate itself into reality. Computerisation of these records would not only enhance the life of these records but would also save lot of government money on their maintenance as well as space. Here, it is notable that for disposal and destruction of any and every old government record, permission has to be sought from the office of the Inspector General of Registrar.

The office of the District Registrar is not only short of the requisite number of staff for its normal functioning, it lacks requisite finance for its operations. Even the existing staffs are under-trained for the normal work. There is very little emphasis on their training which ultimately results in poor work output. Not only that, this office also does not have required number of vehicles for its routine work leading to delay in the normal work. Also, the system of assessment of the value of landed and other property is also not very satisfactory. It is felt that had this assessment been done as per location, potentiality, nature, shape and size, it would have been much better for the government earning more revenue in the process. Also, not all the mouza maps are available in the office thereby hampering work efficiency more often.

Last but not the least, poor work culture and extreme politicisation also hampers the work output.

Now talking of the office of District Land & Land Reforms Officer, it is working better than the above office despite many constraints. The normal routine work of this office includes survey and settlement work and collection of land revenue including lease rent, minor minerals rent and surface water rent. Survey work is still going on in many mouzas of this district and is in different phases at different places. It includes various phases such as Kishtwar, Khanapuri-Bujharat, Attestation, Draft Publication, Final Publication and opearationalisation of the new Record of Rights. One good thing is that almost all the records have been computerised or are at the final stages of computerisation. The Revenue Officer, District Land & Land Reforms Officer, District Collector and Land Reforms and Tenancy Tribunal attend to various disputes relating to land survey arising at various phases. Total land revenue target assigned to this office was Rs. 4 crores but only Rs. 81.70 lakhs have been realised so far because of many problems. Again, of the total target of Rs. 7 crores set for mines and minerals, only 558.30 lakhs have been realised.

Among the various problems this office faces at various levels include poor work culture, unionised politics, old-antediluvian ways of manual surveying (though still very effective) and poor infrastructure in terms of poor office space and lack of staff. Also, the office’s achievement of its revenue target is very erratic and is correlated to politics and various other factors. Unless all these factors are taken care of, this office cannot be said to realise the true potential it should be.

So, as we can see, there are many issues which are common to both the offices and if well attended to in time, the work performance of both these offices would improve tremendously.