Khammam:Village Revenue Officers run parallel offices at HQs to make a quick buck

Khammam: Is it true information that farmers are being harassed by Village Revenue Officers (VROs)? This will be revealed when one can analyse the working style of these officers working at the village-level. The VROs are running offices in private rooms and maintaining staff on their own in each and every mandal headquarters.

Further, 50 per cent of the VROs have chosen their residence in the district headquarters and other towns, instead of living in their respective villages. These VROs are also maintaining a private room from where they can look after their activities.

The role of VRO is key in the villages and each and every farmer needs his assistance. There are more than a dozen occasions when a farmer has to approach the VRO. These include such as getting pattadar pass books, death certificate to claim Rythu Bhima, subsidies from the agriculture department, crop insurance, agricultural income certificate, horticulture plants from government nurseries, drip irrigation systems and seeds.

It means that a certificate from the VRO is needed in most of the occasions and a farmer would approach a VRO at least twice to thrice in a year.

But this requirement of a VRO has turned to be a curse, as the VROs charge for every free service that have to be given to farmers. Money is being collected from the farmers on an urgent basis.

Unable to face the harassment from VROs, the farmers have been approaching the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). According to one estimate, farmers from Khammam and Bhadradri districts have been paying Rs 50 crore per year to procure the required certificates from the VROs.

The example of Gurram Nageswara Rao of Kondikima, under Tallada mandal, is a classic example of this. The VRO of the village Srinivasa Rao demanded Rs 7,000 to issue a pattadar pass book. The farmer approached the ACB sleuths and the VRO was nabbed.

Interestingly, the VRO was caught in his room in Tallada while he was living in Khammam. Almost all the VROs have private assistants and these staff maintain the private offices of the VROs. One set of ‘Kasarapahanis’ (land records) are being kept in these rooms in mandal headquarters instead of the gram panchayats concerned. The assistant collect money on behalf of the VRO from the farmers. Land record purification programme, has been made by many VROs, and 15 per cent of land survey numbers and land records were updated wrongly.

N. Krishna Rao, a farmer in Tallada said, “The government should be strict and order all VROs to reside in their respective villages and set up village secretariats as soon as possible to ease the hardships faced by the farmers”.