Speed up digitization, switch to mobile governances: Chief Secy

Jammu, Mar 14: The Chief Secretary, Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta Monday said that the ongoing digital transformation of revenue administration will bring openness and speed in the decision making and improve the delivery of service in next three months.
He said that the issues of land demarcation and incorporation of new entries in the land records have always been the cause of concern and the ongoing digitization of land records will fully address these concerns.
Dr. Mehta said that adoption of digital technologies in revenue department will facilitate online provision of fard intikhabs and mutations and also ensure that no transaction is done in the land records of the land owners without their knowledge.
He made these comments in the review meeting of UT Capex of the Revenue Department, which was attended, amongst others, by Financial Commissioner, Revenue, Shaleen Kabra, and Commissioner Secretary, Revenue, Vijay Kumar Biduri.
Earlier FCR, Revenue informed that all tehsildars/naib tehsildars will be provided laptops, while the officers down below will be provided tabs for automation of mutations etc. to help improve the overall working of the department at the cutting edge level.
He said switch to mobilize governance is also being contemplated anda mobile app will be developed shortly to support the land transactions on the smartphones.
Commissioner Secretary, Revenue informed that the digital hardware for revenue governance at the leading edge level will be in place by March, 2022, and for sustained momentum, necessary financial support for the purpose will be ensured during the next year as well.
The Chief Secretary directed for ensuring that laptops/tabs are given to the identified revenue functionaries within scheduled time, while further adding that an appropriate mobile app should also be developed to facilitate mobile governance.
He directed the department to ensure that one room in patwar khanas in each patwar halqa is reserved for patwaris for public meetings for at least two hours for four days in a week.
He further directed to ensure that the names of tehsildars/naib-tehsildars/girdawars/patwaris and their mobile numbers are permanently displayed on the walls of these buildings along with helpline numbers to enable the visitor(s) to lodge their complaints on these help lines in case the revenue officials/patwaris are not available for public meetings.
Reiterating his earlier directions, Dr. Mehta asked the department to ensure that land passbooks are distributed to the land owners in two districts, Jammu and Srinagar, by 31st, March, 2022 and to all the land owners in the remaining district by 15th August, 2022.
Saying that the mechanism of addressing the complaints of the land owners has to be strengthened within the departments, the Chief Secretary directed for setting up dedicated 24X7 revenue help lines besides designating a whatsapp number of an officer at an appropriate level in the department exclusively for receiving the complaints/suggestions/inputs from the land owners.
The Chief Secretary said that the department should re-align its spending focus on creating an enabling digital ecosystem instead of setting up physical infrastructure in the shape of buildings etc.
Dr. Mehta advised the department to ensure that the UT’s own software of digitization of the revenue records is made a part of service plus and also integrated with RAS.
He said that this software application in time would need to be converged with the NIC software for digitalization of land records.
The Chief Secretary further directed the department to launch awareness campaigns for not only educating the people about the ongoing digital transformation, but also for urging them to register their Aadhaar/mobile numbers with the departments for benefitting from the e-services in the department.