Staff shortages delay property registrations and e-khatas at Hebbal Sub-Registrar office

Routine government services have slowed to a crawl at the Hebbal and Malleswaram Sub-Registrar offices over the past few weeks, following the deployment of thousands of officials for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) duties. Local residents, including those from R.T. Nagar, have faced significant delays in obtaining birth and death certificates, e-khatas, and property registrations, disrupting school admissions, passport applications, and land transactions.

Venkatesh Gowda, a resident of R.T. Nagar, visited the Hebbal Sub-Registrar office three times to register an agricultural land document. After taking leave from work, he was advised by officials to apply online through the Kaveri Service portal. However, Gowda reported that the portal displayed error messages indicating pages had moved, leaving him unable to complete the transaction. Officials informed him that regular work would resume only after the SIR concludes.

The staff shortage has created a severe backlog of applications. At the Malleswaram Sub-Registrar’s office, 688 non-agricultural (NA) land applications were pending between July 9 and July 13. An official admitted that while these applications normally take an average of six hours to process, the office has been unable to keep pace due to the redeployment of staff.

The backlog is even larger at the Byatarayanapura Sub-Registrar’s office, where 1,470 NA applications remained pending during the same five-day period.

The deployment has also crippled e-Khata services. Revenue Department officials, who typically verify property records and process these applications, have been reassigned to election-related roles. Revenue Officers are currently serving as Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), while Assistant Revenue Officers have become Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AROs). Other staff, including Revenue Assessors, Revenue Inspectors, and Tax Collectors, are supervising Booth Level Officers (BLOs).

As a result of this staff diversion, the weekly "Nanna e-khata, Nanna Hakku" campaign at the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) was recently cancelled. The e-Khata process has also largely halted at the gram panchayat level.

Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Eshwar Khandre stated that technical issues have compounded the delays. He noted that server issues on the e-Swathu portal contributed to the slow processing times. Khandre has directed officials to resolve the server problems and ensured that no applications should remain pending by the end of the month.