State announces Rs 60 crore for upgradation of 454 offices of the second highest revenue earning department
State announces Rs 60 crore for upgradation of 454 offices of the second highest revenue earning department
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Around 454 sub registrar offices, functioning out of dingy buildings boasting rickety equipment, chairs and dirty toilets, are all set to get a new look.
For, the state has announced Rs 60 crore for the facelift of these offices, falling under state revenue department.
A senior Mantralaya official attached to the revenue department confirmed that a sum of Rs 60 crore had been announced by the government for modernisation and upgradation of 454 sub registrar offices across the state.
According to the revenue official, "It is true that the excise department is a major revenue earner for the exchequer, which collects around Rs 45,000 crore annually. The revenue department ranks second with an annual collection of Rs 13,500 crore through stamp duty registration."
The decision to give facelift to sub registrar offices was taken at joint meeting held between Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Revenue Minister Narayan Rane and senior officials.
It was decided that the department, which generates more revenue for the state should get funds for upgradation of its infrastructure, which help streamline work at sub registrar offices and help earn more revenue.
Inspector General of Registration (Maharashtra) S Chockalingam said, "Ours is the only revenue department in the country that collects maximum revenue through selling stamps and registering documents. We top the chart and our yearly collection is over Rs 10,000 crore.
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The state of Gujarat has fixed a target of Rs 6,000 crore for this fiscal, whereas the target for Maharashtra is Rs 16,000 crore. The facelift to our offices will help us serve customers better and earn more revenue for the state."
He added, "The budget provision will be approved in the coming monsoon session and accordingly the funds would be disbursed to the Public Works Department to construct new toilets, increase storage space in the office to store more documents and make proper sitting arrangements."
Explaining the strategy he said, the fund allocation will be need based, ranging from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 25 lakh for each office. But only those offices, which are constructed on government property, will be given a facelift. And those functioning out of private properties won't come under the purview of the project.
The government has already allotted Rs 15 crore for upgrading or replacing existing computers, printers and fingerprint scanners among others at sub registrar offices across. The updradation is likely to complete by August-end.
At present, around 20 lakh documents are registered annually and each of them is scanned and stored in digital libraries. The offices will also get equipped with new hightech printers, scanners, web cameras and fingerprint scanner.
Besides, a centralised server at National Informatics Center, Pune, will be dedicated to store the scanned documents registered across the sub registrar's offices in the state. The facelift will help in faster processing of documents and save a lot of time of customers and staffers.
Did you know?
Stamp duty and Registration generates over Rs 13,500 crore for state exchequer. It is the second largest revenue generator after state excise department which collect Rs 45,000 crore annually
20 lakh
Number of documents registered every year at sub registrar offices across Maharashtra
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