It’s aimed at ‘harassing public’

Suspension of land measurement

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, June 20: Two revenue circle offices in Kamrup (M) – the Guwahati Revenue Circle and the Dispur Revenue Circle – suspending land measurement within their respective jurisdictions for six months during the rainy season from May 15 to November 15, 2018 has elicited a no-nonsense reaction from a section of the affected people who want to say that such a suspension is aimed at harassing them.

As often as not, people rush to the two revenue circle offices to get their lands measured only to come back frustrated when they are told that land measurement has been suspended for six months.

The Guwahati Maati Pattakaran Sangram Samiti (GMPSS), on the other hand, says that the notice issued on the suspension of land measurement is aimed at harassing the public and paving the way for corrupt practices.

Talking to this reporter, GMPSS secretary Prabinjyati Kalita said: “Even as there are floods in Guwahati sometimes, this metropolitan city isn’t a flood-affected area. Such an order is not at all necessitated in Guwahati. The measurement of land in the city is obviously not on hills or in wetlands that are government lands. Cultivable land, on the other hand, is almost nil in Guwahati. If any land is to be measured in Guwahati during the rainy reason, it’s generally patta land. Suspending the measurement of such lands for six months is nothing but a ploy to harass the general public.”

On corrupt practices allegedly taking place in the Revenue Circle office, Kalita said: “Suspension of land measurement for such a long period during the rainy season only paves the way for corruption. A section of unscrupulous officials in the office keeps the backdoor open for measuring lands in a clandestine way even when the suspension of land measurement is in force. There’s no dearth of examples of the department giving land settlements to industrialists even during the rainy season when land measurement remains suspended, officially.”

Spelling out other effects of the suspension of land measurement in Guwahati during this season, Kalita further said: “With this suspension, only a six-month period in a year is left for the general people of Guwahati to get their lands measured. The biggest hurdle in such a situation is that officials in the Guwahati Revenue Circle are reluctant to do such land measurements on a war footing. They don’t feel as to how precious is the remaining six-month period of the year for the general public to get their lands measured before the promulgation of suspension. They, however, like to keep a whole lot of land-related works piled up on their tables for this or that reasons. Many land-related works that can be sorted out just by field visits by kanungos and mandals in Guwahati have been kept pending for years and on.”

The bottom line goes that even as all officials of the revenue circle office are at the service of the people, they can do precious little if they are ethically challenged.