Jalandhar: Revenue officers go on 6-day mass leave, residents suffer

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 1

Lending support to the call given by the Punjab Revenue Officers’Association, the district Revenue Department officers today went on a six-day mass leave from June 1 to protest the suspension of their two colleagues in Ludhiana and Hoshiarpur.

The offices of the district revenue officers, including tehsildars and naib tehsildars, were found closed due to the strike and visitors were forced to return without getting their works done. They complained that strike at the revenue offices has become an everyday affair, and that the general public was being harassed for no fault of theirs.

Ramandeep Singh, a visitor, said: “People are forced to suffer as no property registration work is being done. I am working in Mohali and have specially come to the city yesterday evening to get my plot registry work done. But when I arrived at the office of Tehsildar this morning, I found the office closed and learnt that they have announced to be on six-day leave,” he said.

“There are many other ways to protest or express your resentment against the government but by going on mass leave, the revenue officers are simply troubling the local residents, who had no role in all this,” he further added.

Another resident Iqbal Singh said it already takes a lot of time and we run from pillar to post to get the documents prepared and registration done. “And now these very often protests andstrikes are adding to their woes and causing inconvenience. The government must intervene and bring a permanent solution to this problem as such strikes in support of guilty officers are completely against the law,” he added.

Notably, the revenue officers proceeded on mass casual leave today after the services of their two colleagues - Jeevan Garg, Sub-Registrar, Ludhiana, and Harminder Singh, Sub-Registrar, Hoshiarpur, were placed under suspension for registering documents without a no-objection certificate, which the association members claimed was not needed.

A revenue officer, requesting anonymity, said we apologise to the public for the inconvenience caused due to the leave but the government was putting unnecessary pressure on the revenue officials by registering false corruption cases. “We request the government to cancel the suspension orders of the two Sub-Registrars or else we would be forced to intensify our protest,” he added.

No ad hoc panels

Last year it was revealed in a report on the regularisation of colonies submitted by the MC’s Town Planning Department to the ad-hoc committee that colonisers owed crores of rupees to the MC, but there had been no solution to the issue. Mayor Jagdish Raja said he was well aware of the matter and he would form the committees again next week. “The committees are a big support, I agree, and will form these now,” he said.

A regular affair: Third strike in last two months

• The strike called by state revenue officers on Wednesday is the third strike by the revenue officers in the last two months. Earlier on March 29, the Punjab Revenue Officers’ Association had gone on an indefinite strike to protest against farmers belonging to the Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) who held revenue officials captive at Lambi village in Muktsar district
• Thereafter, in the first week of May, the District Revenue Kanungo Association and the Revenue Patwari Union announced to remain on mass leave to protest against the filing of a corruption case against a patwari in Malerkotla by the Vigilance Department

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