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Friday March 29, 2024

5,000 Patwaris to be appointed to meet shortage in Punjab

By Jawwad Rizvi
October 06, 2020

LAHORE: Punjab government will appoint patwaris to meet the shortage in the province as the Board of Revenue (BoR) is in dire need of 5,000 patwaris which are essential for the hierarchy of the revenue department, The News has learnt.

The Senior Member Board of Revenue mentioned in a review meeting on the performance of the department that it was facing a severe shortage of human resources. Currently, they are in need of 5,000 patwaris which are essential for the hierarchy of the revenue department. He asked the chair of the meeting provincial Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht to allow hiring of 5,000 patwaris.

According to the meeting minutes, the Senior Member Board of Revenue (SMBR) suggested that cost of hiring 5,000 patwaris which are essential could be managed from the revenue collected by the BoR from the province. “The cost for hiring of 5,000 patwaris, earmarking a certain percentage of revenue collected by BoR for operations and human resource requirements of BoR,” the SMBR suggested, justifying that this act will result in increase in revenue collection for the whole province. Furthermore, if the department is provided a share of the revenue it collects it will take care of its own expenses, including pensions.

According to the minutes, Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht appreciated the proposal and directed the BoR to present the financial outlay for different hiring options to finance secretary and decide a way forward.

Further, the meeting also raised concerns on the performance of the Punjab Land Record Authority (PLRA), specifically on wait and processing times of the applications as the public was facing issues on both counts. The meeting instructed strict monitoring of service delivery by PLRA should be undertaken to facilitate the customer base and special attention should be paid to wait and processing times.

Further, in order to facilitate citizens and improve ease of access to land record services, the meeting suggested the collaboration between Nadra and PLRA can be further increased to include other services such as ‘inteqal’ transfers. It was further suggested that collaboration with Bank of Punjab can also be undertaken to increase outreach.

According to the documents, the SMBR informed that the satellite centres have been piloted at ‘mauza’ level. These will be based in district administration offices and will be manned by patwaris who will have access to LRMIS software. For this purpose, 9,000 laptops have been requested from the Higher Education Department.

The PLRA in an attempt to improve service delivery and facilitate citizens with regard to land record services has initiated expansion of land record services by establishment of Arazi Record Centres at Qanoongoi level. In this connection, a target of 115 centres has been set for the financial year 2020-21, out of which 32 have been operationalised and 83 have yet to be established. Further, mobile van services were introduced for which 10 mobile vans equipped with requisite technology will provide land record services in rural areas.