No tehsildar for month, land registry work stuck at Sirsa

Land registration work at the E-Disha Centre in Sirsa has slowed down badly. People who got tokens 3–4 days ago are still standing in long queues, waiting for their turn, but most of them are unable to complete their land registry.

The main reason is that a new tehsildar has not been appointed, even though the previous tehsildar was suspended a month ago over an alleged bribery incident. The previous tehsildar, Bhuvnesh Kumar, was suspended immediately by the government after MLA Gokul Setia shared a CCTV video on social media, where Bhuvnesh was allegedly seen talking about bribe-related matters. Since his suspension, the government gave the responsibility of land registry work to the Naib Tehsildar, District Revenue Officer (DRO), and the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM).

Kamal Singla, a resident who came to register a plot, said he arrived on Friday, but the Naib Tehsildar was on leave. He took a token for Monday, expecting his turn at 10 am, but even then, his work was not done. He claimed the Naib Tehsildar only marked registries after 2 pm, and since E-Disha closes by 5 pm, many people went back without getting their work done. He also said although three officers had been assigned for registries, only the Naib Tehsildar is actually doing the work, while the other two are not processing registries even though tokens were issued under their names.

Earlier, around 150 registries were done each day. Now, the number has fallen to less than half. "On days when the Naib Tehsildar is on leave, no registry work happens, because the other two officials are busy with their own duties," Singla added.

Another resident, Rajender Kumar, said he gave a written complaint to the SDM, asking that the registry hours be extended so that at least the people who got tokens that day could finish their work. He said the SDM took the letter but left immediately in his car without giving any response. Naib Tehsildar Subhash Chandra admitted that his workload had become too much, but he was trying his best to manage. He explained that the staff is new and untrained, which is causing further delays. He added that he also has the charge of Nathusari Chopta, and on the day in question, he had to attend Dabwali court all day, so the Sirsa work was delayed. He also said the other two officials assigned for registry work were not doing it.

District Revenue Officer (DRO) Sanjay Chaudhary said although he was given additional charge of Tehsildar, he had officially informed the government in writing that he would not take the charge because it was a lower post compared to his current position. Repeated calls were made to SDM Rajender Kumar for his comment, but he did not respond.