Amritsar patwaris hold protest over abolition of posts

Amritsar, August 26

Members of the district chapter of the Revenue Patwar Union handed over a memorandum to Local Bodies Minister Dr Inderbir Singh Nijjar and urged him to roll back the government’s move to scrap 1,056 Patwar Halqas in the state.

The minister assured the union leaders that their demand would be brought to the notice of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann.

Kulwant Singh Dehriwal, president of the local unit, said it was an unjust decision which would further burden patwaris, who were already short in number in the department.

There are a total of 4,716 patwar circles in the state, but now the government has reduced these to 3,660. He said successive governments increased the number of districts from 12 to 23, tehsils from 62 to 96, police commissionerates from three to five and several Assembly constituencies were carved out to efficiently discharge services.

“With the introduction of new public welfare schemes and now increase in the size of the patwar circles, the work of patwaris is likely to be increased. So, the organisation is demanding the government to restore 1,056 patwar circles,” he added.

The probationary period of 1,227 patwaris recruited in December 2018 was reduced from three years to two years.

In Tarn Taran, revenue patwaris staged a district-level dharna in the District Administrative Complex (DAC) against the state government.

District president Sarabjit Singh Sandhu and national leader of the Patwar Union Sukhpreet Singh Pannun were among the others who addressed on the occasion.

The leaders condemned the state government for abolishing the huge number of posts of patwaris. They said the union had been demanding increasing in the number of posts due to increase in workload, but the state government had gone the other way.