SIT: Poor record keeping gave a free hand for tampering with records

VISAKHAPATNAM: Blaming it on the poor maintenance of land records, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is probing into the land scam allegations in Visakhapatnam has said that the decades-long negligence of the authorities concerned in this regard had given a free hand to the corrupt officials and land sharks to tamper with the documents and grab valuable government and private land. 
Having probed into the allegations pertaining to land irregularities by a spree of record checking and field visit exercises, the SIT officials are now busy drafting the report as the two months of extended tenure is coming to a closure.   

Sources close to the probe said that the report would mention the major reason that led to the land scam which the SIT officials say was the poor maintenance of age-old land records. Further, the dossier would be a comprehensive compilation of probable solutions that would prevent the repeat of such malpractice. 
Meanwhile, a group of SIT officials are still continuing their field visits and verification of records and the rest of the officials are analysing the data and studying the related regulations before deciding on their recommendations to the government.

SIT chief Vineet Brijlal had recently explained to Express key factors of the land irregularities. “Taking advantage of the poor record keeping, vested interests had tampered with the documents and manipulated the ownership data by wilful inclusion of wrong particulars,” he said.

Key findings 
Large-scale irregularities at the mandal level tehsildar offices across the district 
Knowing that several records have gone missing, the officials concerned did not pay heed 
Poor vigilance by the higher officials 
As the higher-ups were not aware of the faulty records, they lagged behind in taking disciplinary action 
During formations of new mandals and merger, officials did not check the land records