The State government, which is keen on bringing in new Revenue and Municipal Acts, has entrusted the task to senior officials. The move is to make the departments accountable, improve service delivery, put an end to the discretionary powers of field officers and procrastination in addressing people’s grievances.

Budget session

Though no timelines have been set for the process, it is expected that the new Municipal Act would be in place before the municipal elections, which are likely to be held in August. The government may convene a special session of the Legislative Assembly to pass both the Acts if it is not in a hurry to convene a budget session to present the full-fledged budget. “It will also depend on the level of preparedness of the departments concerned,” sources said.

The State government had presented vote-on-account budget ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. It chose to wait for the full budget of the new Central government to get a clear idea on the grants to be released to the Centrally-sponsored schemes. The newly-elected BJP-led NDA government under the new Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitaraman, would present the Union Budget in July.

Official sources reiterated that the new Revenue Act would not be about the merger of Revenue Department with other departments, but would bring in transparency and infuse accountability into the system and would have provisions in place for action against failure in delivering services to people within a given time-frame. Another factor is to do away with archaic provisions and terminology that have been continuing in the Revenue Act since the British rule.

Online services

The State government had given a direction in 2015 itself that the existing Revenue Act be reviewed, and accordingly, the Revenue Department had entrusted the task to NALSAR and some retired officials of the department. A report was submitted to the government in 2016. “That report has to be studied first. The purpose of the new Act is to bring in two-pronged strategy — maximum exposure of services and transparency by bringing these services online so that people need not make rounds to the revenue offices, and if someone is found wanting, stern punishment should be handed out to him/her to instil fear in the official machinery,” they said.