Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal during a meeting with officials of revenue and disaster management department in presence of MoS for revenue & disaster management Bhabesh Kalita at his conference room in Janata Bhawan on Friday.

In a major move to remove anomalies in land related records, the revenue department of Assam would soon launch a land record purification exercise in the state.

The department would carry out verification of available land records to make the documents error-free and integrate the same with Aadhar card of the pattadars.

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Friday directed the revenue & disaster management department to start this exercise as a pilot project and later to expand its implementation throughout the state.

The chief minister issued the direction while going through a presentation of officials of revenue department, who visited Vijayawada city of Andhra Pradesh recently to study the revenue management system of the state.

The official delegation was led by minister of state for revenue and disaster management Bhabesh Kalita.

Stating the importance of error-free land records for proper management of land revenue system securing rights of the pattadars, chief minister Sonowal asked the department to initiate steps for introducing ‘single patta for single pattadar in single village’ system in the state.

‘Single patta for single pattadar in single village’ system is already in practice in Andhra Pradesh.

The chief minister also directed the department to carry out survey of non-cadastral villages in the state adopting latest technology in a time bound manner.

Taking strong note of public grievance in delay in issue of land related documents beyond stipulated timeframe, chief minister Sonowal asked the department to bring into force advanced monitoring of applications submitted at circle offices.

He directed to introduce a centralised monitoring system to track the disposal and pendency rate of applications by concerned circles.

Moreover, stern steps to ensure better work culture by the officials of circle offices were also suggested by the chief minister.

Further underlining the need for capacity augmentation of circle officers and lot mondols, the chief minister instructed the department to conduct refresher course and orientation programme for them.

He also asked the department to immediately notify the transfer policy of lot modols to realise better service delivery.

Keeping in view that since 1960 fees against several revenue related services have not been reviewed, the CM directed the department to examine possible avenues for enhancing land revenue collection in the state.

He asked the department to undertake revaluation of the services and introduce online collection of fees.