Revenue Minister V Srinivas Prasad has clarified that government has not dropped the idea of forming 43 taluks. The revenue department has submitted a proposal on forming sub-divisions and 150 new hoblis. However, the decision would be taken according to availability of funds, he said.

Speaking after flagging off a vehicle to create awareness on caste-based census here on Monday, he said around Rs 1 crore was needed to form a hobli, around Rs 7 crore for one sub-division and around Rs 25 crore for taluk. There is an urgent need of recruitment of tahsildars in the State, he said.

Adalat achievements

The revenue department has taken revenue adalat as pilot project. Around 1.62 crore RTCs have been distributed to the public. Every district would conduct 40 adalats at least and more than 6,000 adalats have been conducted in the state already.

More than eight lakh corrections have been done to the revenue documents in the adalats, he said.

There was dearth of surveyors for podi (sub-division) adalat during the previous government. The present government has recruited 1,769 surveyors and trained them for six months.

Now, more than 2,000 surveyors are available for the podi adalat and they have to conduct at least 23 adalats per month. Every member of the cabinet will establish his achievements after the completion of two years, he said.

Srinivas Prasad said government will take a decision on acquisition of land for expansion of runway of Mangalore International Airport after few discussions. The Congress has strongly opposed the nine amendments that the Central government wants to bring to Land Acquisition Act.

However, in ‘Mann Ki Baath’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that State governments can follow even the older one. The state government will discuss about the options, he said. Meanwhile, he said he has not received any complaint on missing of files. Such chances are very lean as files are dealt in various levels in the department.
However, if such things happen, the government won’t spare such people.

Social justice

Revenue Minister said the caste-based census was a major step towards providing social justice to all. This is a very scientific process, where information about social status of a family would be collected through 54 questions. The challenging job needs cooperation from all the corners. It should be a success and everyone should get benefited from it, he said.

MLA J R Lobo said Roman Catholic, Protestants are not sub-castes, but religious groups just like Shia, Sunni and other groups in Islam.

People should understand that it is caste census and not based on religion. Minister for Health and Family Welfare U T Khader, MLA N A Haris,MLC Ivan D’Souza, Deputy Commissioner A B Ibrahim, AC Ashok were also present on the occasion.

Courtesy: Deccan Herald