DC to take back his order after strongly worded representation by revenue officers association
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in
On March 22, 2022 Deputy Commissioner Gurdaspur Mohammad Ishfaq, IAS has issued an order to all the concerned departments working under him. In these order the deputy commissioner has given the reference of What’sapp order received from the higher ups.
In these orders, the deputy commissioner has instructed the officers to follow the orders and if anyone found disobeying the orders will face the disciplinary action.
The deputy commissioner has also directed the concerned officers to install CCTV cameras in the tehsil office, to daily maintain the records of registries done in the tehsil office. He even ordered to depute a staff to call the person who visited the tehsil office for registries and cross check with them whether they face any problem during their visit to tehsil office, whether the paid any extra money to any official, deed writer or anyone in the tehsil office.
This order of the deputy commissioner Gurdaspur has irked the revenue officers association. Today the officer association wrote a strongly worded letter to the deputy commissioner and raised their voice of dissent.
Gurdev Singh Dham, president Punjab Revenue Officers Association pointed out that “above mentioned letter was issued by you for supervising the functioning of office of Sub Registrar/ Joint Sub Registrar and another Revenue officers. This is very derogatory and demeaning words are used intentionally to insult the revenue officer. Spirit and gist of the letter is that Revenue officers are only source of corruption and their subordinate a clerk will enquire his deeds.”
Dham further said “It is worth to mention that that actual source of corruption is the higher authorities, and Revenue officers are compelled to fulfill their greed and expectations.
Revenue officers are devoid of any basic necessities & provision and even vehicles issued to RO are being used by DCs for their personal use to carry Tiffin, commuting of peons, gardeners etc.I am sure all IAS including DCs, after appointment as IAS haven’t used their personal car, filled fuel to their own cars. Chances are that majority might be unknown to the actual rates of fuel. Who will monitor these misdeeds?
After their strongly worded letter, today the deputy commissioner Gurdaspur issued the withdrawal orders, that were issued by him on March 22,2022 .
When contacted the deputy commissioner he said “the revenue department has a lot of contact with the general public and the smooth services of this department are also being provided to the people. He said that yesterday with the objective of providing more quality services to the people of the district, an order was issued to the officers of various departments to serve the people on priority basis.”
He further added that “CCTV cameras should be installed outside the revenue offices so that those who come to register could get feedback from them. He said that already CCTV cameras have been installed outside the office of Deputy Commissioner Gurdaspur and in the waiting room where the public comes to meet him regarding their grievances, so that the work of the public can be done on priority basis. The public has benefited greatly from this.
“e-girdavari work is going on, which is directly related to the payment of crop to the farmers and March 25 is the last date for transfer of money into farmers account. The Revenue Officers’ Association objected to the order and issued a notice stating that if the above orders were not reversed, they would cease work from tomorrow, March 24. Otherwise the revenue staff might go on strike. With that the farmers may have suffered”
However, he clarified that the work is done under the rules of each officer but if any officer has any problem then they can meet him at any time.Gurdaspur is a district where no corruption is allowed.
He further said that as per the records of the Deputy Commissioner’s Office, no vehicle of the Revenue Department was being used by the DC’s office. He further said that if any expenditure has been incurred by the Revenue Officer during the Assembly elections then he can contact the concerned Returning Officer to recover his expenses. This is because the funds for the Assembly elections have been provided to the Returning Officer. However, if the payment of a Revenue Officer is pending, he can contact me (Deputy Commissioner).
He reiterated that work was being taken from every officer as per the rules and he appealed to all the officers to work in the public interest as a team in the district.
He added that “ I even had a talk with the president of the revenue officers association Gurdev Singh and he admitted no favour is ever sorted by me, since I joined as deputy commissioner.
When contacted the president Punjab Revenue Officers Association Gurdev Singh Dham, he didn’t respond to the calls.
March,2022
