After winning applause on becoming the first department to start the implementation of Time Bound Delivery Service, the Revenue Department was this month given responsibility ~ additional to its present domain of work ~ to handle minor coastal regulation zone violations.
The State Government has constituted District Level Coastal Monitoring Committees’ in the North and South districts to dispose over 600 cases of CRZ violations pending for the last five years. The committees, which will be chaired by respective District Collectors, will thus assist Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) in monitoring the compliance of conditions stipulated by the authority while granting various permissions under CRZ notification 2011. The government claims its aim is to reduce the burden on the GCZMA, which will now deal with only major violation cases.
This development has triggered discussion about the increase in work load on the collectorates, considering that almost every citizen of a district comes into contact with it with the work of issue of important documents. Moreover, in a recent amendment over 2,000 tenancy cases of tenancy appeals and revisions are set to be transferred back from civil courts to Mamlatdars, Collectors, Deputy Collectors and Administrative Tribunals. This has reverted the work to the local administration, which it carried out till three years ago in 2014.
On one hand, the officers concerned are already on the job of speeding up the work that also includes identifying talukas where more than one Mamlatdar is required to handle bulk cases; on the other hand the district Collectors have been asked to submit a concrete plan to implement the system. The Mamlatdars will be recruited through Goa Public Service Commission.
While this work is underway; in another decision, the government declared that Saturday courts will now start hearing Munkarial and Tenancy cases besides Mutation cases, which has already begun since past one and half month.
Revenue Minister Rohan Khaunte, however, does not feel the Collectorates will be overburdened, stating the deputy collectors have always been handling cases related to CRZ violations. “As per the rules, the Deputy Collectors are entitled to handle minor offenses of CRZ violations and it is already in force. All new initiatives taken up by the government is for good governance and providing quick justice,” he told Herald allaying apprehensions that the extra workload would slow down services to the public while also leading to enormous strain on the existing staff.
The department, he claimed, will soon be going in for recruitment of additional contractual staffers at different levels. “Wherever there is a shortfall, we will be filling up the posts,” he assured.
The Collectorate being District Administration Office is at this level that the policies of the Government are translated into practice and the problems of local people are studied and communicated to the State Government. The Collector is the highest functionary in hierarchy and at Division level, Deputy Collector and Sub-Divisional Officers are functioning while at Taluka level Mamlatdars are the heads of the Talukas and then at last Talathi is the representative of the Government to help the public at grass root level.
A long list of responsibilities by the district collectorates includes heading the district level disaster management committee. The work right from Talathi to Mamlatdar to the Collectors deal with delivery of caste, income, divergence, domicile and residence certificates; applications of which its respective offices receive in thousand numbers. The department, this year, also started an online delivery of these services which has nevertheless reduced manual work and overcrowding of the offices.
The unending list of responsibilities also includes Mutation, Partition, Sanad for Conversion of Land, scrutinizing and deciding permission for Sound in addition to dealing with applications for arms license for self and crop protection, etc.
