Sameer Singh
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, August 8
The acute shortage of staff in the Revenue Department has been adversely affecting work in the state. ‘Overburdened’, patwaris have disengaged themselves from the charge being given to them for additional circles since June 21.
As a result, residents are at the receiving end. As per the data accessed by The Tribune, 8,200 villages in the state are without patwaris currently and of the total 4,716 patwar circles, 2,894 are lying vacant. To make up for the shortage of staff, the department had given additional charge of three to four patwar circles on an average to one patwari.
The data also suggests the work in Nawanshahr district is the worst affected with only 33 patwaris working against 179 sanctioned posts while 146 posts are lying vacant. Overburdened with additional charge, 33 patwaris were catering to residents of 400 villages in the district. Similarly, 24 patwaris have been catering to 362 villages in Pathankot district while of the 99 sanctioned posts, 75 are lying vacant.
1.5K to be recruited
We are going to fill 1,500 vacant posts of patwari. The process of recruitment has already been initiated. —Gurpreet Singh Kangar, Revenue Minister
In the Doaba region, only 15 to 25 per cent patwaris are working against the sanctioned posts. In Jalandhar, as many as 111 patwaris have been catering to residents of 699 villages. Harbir Singh Dhindsa, president of the Revenue Patwar Union, Punjab, said, “The number of districts has increased from 13 in the 1990s to 23 in the state but the number of sanctioned posts of patwari has remained fixed at 4,716 for decades.
8,200 Punjab villages without patwaris, work in limbo
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