New ways out of old

Surinderjit Singh Sandhu

THE  year was 1977. The then revenue minister, during field visits and address to the public, would call all patwaris of the district, along with revenue records, at the site of the public meeting. He would pompously announce, ‘Dekho, aaj saare patwari itthe ne, je kise nu farad nahi mili ya eh paise mangde ne ttan dasso.’ Though the complainants never crossed double digits on such occasions, the patwaris, as a class, felt embarrassed. 

In those days, many patwaris lived in the circles of their posting to enable the public to approach them. In 1987,  in Ropar district, a pilot project of computerisation of ‘record of rights’ was initiated. However, nothing happened over the next two decades, as the project only contemplated data entry. Thereafter, a Financial Commissioner Revenue (FCR) tried to install additional photostat machines at the tehsil level to photocopy the entire record of rights and register khasra girdawari, to hand over copies, in case of need. The attempt was aborted ab initio as it involved a lot of work, funds, resources and logistics. 

Again, in 1989, it was decided that the patwaris would attend the tehsil office once a week and people could get copies of record on that day. Though closely monitored, the scheme failed within two months.

I was sitting with a DC when he got a phone call from a woman FCR of the state. ‘Madam, there will not be any problem. The scheme has been initiated two months back and there is no complaint from any patwari so far,’ the DC said. The conversation continued for about 10 minutes and ended with the DC having a hearty laugh. ‘Madam darr gaye lagde.’ This young, frail and short-statured DC had, at his own risk, taken a loan from banks to modernise his office and computerise it. In his office, anyone could submit an application and would get a response or the work done within three days. The patwaris would also send copies of the requisite record to his office, which would be couriered to the applicants the same day. Any person desirous of a copy of record would ring up the patwari concerned and the copies would be delivered at the person’s residence at a nominal fee. This innovative scheme was highly acclaimed in the area. But when the FCR came to know about it, she rang up some other DCs who told her that the scheme could foment trouble by the patwaris at the state level by way of an agitation. She added, ‘There is no such provision in the law for the patwari to send a copy of record through a messenger or a courier, and if tomorrow there is any trouble, I may not be in a position to help you.’ 

That scheme, however, went on very well for about a year, till such time the lion-hearted, legend of the modern times officialdom, Krishan Kumar, was the DC of Nawanshahr.