2,000 secretariats to be registrations-ready by Oct 2

Vijayawada: Registration services will be extended to 2,000 village and ward secretariats across the state by October 2 to enable people complete their transactions in a hassle-free and transparent manner.

Ultimately, the services will be made available in all 15,000 village and ward secretariats in the state over the next few months, according to special chief secretary (revenue) Rajat Bhargava. "We recently launched the registration services on a pilot basis in 51 secretariats. This has been a success and now we will expand the services to 2,000 secretariats. The secretariats' staff has been imparted required training for this," Rajat said.

He said this was a major step in not only decentralising the registration services but also in eliminating middlemen and checking corruption. By end of October, all 15,000 staffers required to man the registration services would be trained.

"At the end of the training, we will conduct an examination for the staff. We are introducing an online cell for addressing staff queries on the registration issues. A similar online facility will be made available soon for the general public as well," the special chief secretary said.

Besides prompt delivery of registration services, Rajat said focus was also on to check corruption at all levels.

"We have installed closed-circuit cameras in all sub-registrar offices in the state. All activities are monitored on a real-time basis in the office of the commissioner and inspector general of registrations," he added.

Also, posters indicating the toll-free number 14400 were displayed in all registration offices for lodging complaints on corruption to the Anti-Corruption Bureau.

The district registrars have been directed to visit at least three sub-registrar offices in a week to keep a close tab on service delivery and also to check corruption.

"Our endeavour is to completely transform the registration services to make them easy and hassle-free. We are working on a proactive and faceless system that will take the services to the next level with minimal human interface," Rajat said.