Hyderabad: Over 9,000 former village revenue officers (VROs) and village revenue assistants (VRAs), who worked prior to the abolition of the village revenue system in 2020, have evinced interest in returning to the revenue department and work as village-level officers under the new Bhu Bharati (Right of Records) Act, 2024. The state govt has recently asked for options from the former VROs and VRAs, who were shifted to various departments after the system was abolished, for returning to their previous roles.
While the state govt is planning to appoint village-level revenue officers for 10,954 revenue villages in the state, 9,654 former VROs and VRAs have given their options to return to the revenue department. Of them, 3,500 former VROs and 6,000 VRAs gave their options to the chief commissioner of land administration (CCLA). When the VRO system was removed, 3,500 VROs were shifted to various departments such as irrigation, panchayat raj and other departments. Now, almost all of them prefer to work in their parent department, revenue, again.
Incidentally, 1,500 VROs and 1,900 VRAs have completed graduation, while the rest have studied up to Intermediate or less.
“As only 9,600 (personnel) are available (through options) against the required 11,000 village-level officers, initially some village officers will be given two villages each and the govt may recruit new employees later,” a senior revenue department official said.
Govt sources said since the VRO system faced allegations of changing the revenue records and was allegedly responsible for certain irregularities, including encroachment of govt land parcels in the villages, though the govt wants to revive the system, they would not be given any powers to make entries or make corrections in the revenue records and maintenance of records except keeping a manual copy of the village records.
Former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, while abolishing the VRO system in 2020 and bringing in the new RoR Act, had explained how VROs in some villages fudged revenue records and created litigations.
But the Congress govt is of the opinion that the VROs and VRAs were performing other duties along with the maintenance of revenue records and it was not correct to abolish the system. Instead, the govt should regulate the system, they said.
“Under the new Bhu Bharati Act, they have a limited role as now everything is a digital record and on the website. The revenue department will take a printout periodically, like every year, and keep it with village revenue officers and put it in the public domain for transparency,” a CCLA official said.
