RABINARAYAN JENA, OP
Bhubaneswar: More than 61 lakh land records in Odisha are yet to be taken up for survey, despite the expiry of the six-month deadline set by the government, raising concerns over delays in revenue services, sources said.
The state government has taken several steps to make revenue services more accessible to the public. Recently, Revenue and Disaster Management (R&DM) Minister Suresh Pujari launched the “Ama Sathi” app to facilitate the prompt hearing of public grievances and resolution of problems.
The minister and R&DM department senior officials, including Additional Chief Secretary Arabinda Kumar Padhee, have been regularly reviewing the delivery of revenue services. However, a reported lack of commitment among officials at the tehsil level, particularly tehsildars, has hindered the resolution of public grievances.
Departmental data indicate that the government’s objectives have yet to be effectively implemented. In February, the state government directed all districts to correct Column-2 (Khata No. 2) Record of Rights (RoR) cases on a mission-mode basis. The exercise aims to identify the rightful beneficiaries and ensure that land records accurately reflect ownership. More than 1.72 crore land records across 318 tehsils in the state were initially identified for survey.
Of these, about 91 lakh records have been surveyed and updated, while more than 19 lakh remain under survey. However, revenue officials have yet to take up more than 61.68 lakh records for survey. The state government had set a six-month deadline to complete the exercise.
Although the deadline has expired, the work remains incomplete, reportedly due to a lack of commitment among officials, a senior Revenue department officer said. Khordha district has over 10,82,940 land records, of which around 3,37,700 in Bhubaneswar were identified for survey.
So far, 1,21,000 records have been updated in Bhubaneswar, while 7,500 remain under survey. More than two lakh records are yet to be taken up by officials. The number of land records identified for survey varies across tehsils in Khordha district. Balianta has around 85,860 records, Balipatna 55,544, Banapur 72,380, Begunia 76,680, Bolagarh 89,880, Chilika 59,206, Jatani 1,18,465, Khordha 1,06,372 and Tangi 80,853. More than 35,000 records in Balianta, 23,772 in Balipatna, 16,304 in Banapur, 14,629 in Begunia, 22,609 in Bolagarh, 8,064 in Chilika, 69,200 in Jatani, 41,639 in Khordha and 24,543 in Tangi still await survey.