Punjab abolishes over 1K posts of patwari

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, August 2

The Punjab Government has abolished 1,050 posts of patwari in the Department of Revenue and Rehabilitation.

Brought down from 4,716 to 3,660

• The number of posts of patwari in the department has been reduced from 4,716 to 3,660
• Official orders have been issued citing a decision of the Cabinet in December 2019 for “restructuring of posts of patwari”

The move comes at a time when the AAP has otherwise launched a massive employment drive in government departments to fill vacant posts.

The number of posts of patwari has been reduced from 4,716 to 3,660.

Surprisingly, this decision, taken by the then Capt Amarinder Singh government, was never publicly disclosed. It is only now that the orders have been issued, citing the decision of the Council of Ministers taken on December 5, 2019.

Against the 4,716 originally sanctioned posts of patwari, these revenue officials are working on only 1,700. As 3,000-odd posts were lying vacant and patwaris were overworked, the AAP government had recently rehired 400 retired ones to tide over the crisis. As many as 1,090 newly recruited patwaris are also undergoing training at the moment.

“Already, there are 2,200 patwar circles where all revenue-related work — be it issuing of ‘inteqal’, girdawari of land, land mutation etc. — has stopped since May 13,” said Mohan Singh Bhedpura, the state representative of the All-India Kanungo Association.

He added at a time when there were 12 districts, the posts of patwari were 4,716. Now when the number of districts is 23, the posts have been reduced to 3,660.

“Ideally, according to the Land Records Manual, one patwari should be posted for 1,200 cultivators in an area. But now, in some districts like Ludhiana, we have one patwari for 25,000 cultivators, making the work in the Revenue Department slow and tedious,” he said.

Revenue Minister Brahm Shankar Jimpa said the previous Congress government had taken the decision to abolish the posts. “Since the decision was taken then, based on the recommendation of the Revenue Department that they did not need so many posts of patwari, the orders have been issued. However, if we feel that there is a need to revive these posts, after filling all vacancies of 3,660 posts, we will recruit additional 1,050 patwaris,” he said.