CM gives officials three months to process applications under Akrama-Sakrama scheme

BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has directed officials of the Revenue Department to process applications submitted under Akrama-Sakrama scheme in the next three months. At a review meeting held on Tuesday, Siddaramaiah told the officials to attend to all the applications that had accrued under the scheme which will allow the owners to regularise the violations after paying a penalty.

The Revenue Department had given time till April of this year to people to submit applications to regularise commercial and residential properties under under section 94 (c) for rural areas and section 94 (c) (c) for towns.

Earlier, the government had set December 31 as the deadline as more than 50 per cent of the applications were said to be pending. That deadline has effectively been moved to February. More than three lakh applications are said to be pending with the Revenue Department.The CM held a two day review meeting with all the district in charge ministers, DCs, ZP CEOs and principal secretaries of all departments.

In addition to this, the Revenue Department has also been told yet again to speed up the process of handing over title deeds to forest dwellers. Officials were also directed to speed up the process of handing over sites and constructing houses for those from SC/ST communities who do not own any property.
The Bengaluru DC’s office informed the chief minister that they have recovered 6,000 acres of encroached government land. Sidaramaiah has instructed officials to recover encroached government land as soon as possible so that it can handed over for schemes and programmes implemented in public interest.

‘Remove names of BJP men from Tipu invites’
The Chief Minister has instructed officials to remove the names of some BJP leaders from the invitations for Tipu Jayanti celebrations. Several leaders including MPs Ananth Kumar Hegde and Pratap Simha, had apart from objecting to the celebrations, also demanded that their names be removed from the invitation list, which are included as demanded by protocol. The names of those who have written to the government requesting the removal of their names will not be added.

ODF-free status in March
Out of the 176 taluks, only 76 taluks have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). As against a goal of 55 lakh toilets that are to be constructed, only 32 lakh toilets have been constructed. A deadline of March has been given to complete the construction to allow the state to be declared ODF. The state government’s recent pet scheme, Indira Canteens will be established in taluks as well. After its success in Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah had announced that canteens would be established in districts as well. Continuing the same trend, Siddaramaiah has directed officials to open canteens in taluks too. Keenly aware of the some of the problems faced in choosing sites to build the canteen, the CM has directed officials either to take places on rent or start mobile canteens in areas where they have trouble finding a
suitable place.

School teachers too told to pay back allowance
Bengaluru: Teachers working in state government-run primary and high schools who were appointed after 2008 have been asked to pay back the special allowance which they have already drawn. As many as 1,557 primary and 3,789 high school teachers have been asked to pay back. Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has issued a circular regarding this following directions by the Comptroller and Auditor General in its report about special allowances paid to ineligible candidates. As per the circular, taluk-and district-level officials have been directed to withhold the salaries of teachers for the month of November if they fail to repay the allowance. The department has to recover over `8 crore from teachers those who have appointed after August 1, 2008. Recently, a similar measure was initiated even against government degree college lecturers with the Department of Collegiate Education asking them to pay back the dearness allowance.