Slip in BCC khata scheme is showing

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">bangalore: the bangalore city corporation (bcc) launched sarala khata scheme with much fanfare. however, the scheme is anything but <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">saral</span> as citizens have discovered much to their chagrin. take this case: a citizen applied for a <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">khata</span> transfer attaching an noc from his family members.though everything was in order, bcc revenue officer was keen on measuring the property. following which, he raised objections and refused to transfer the <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">khata</span>. the reason: the property was three inches less in width than mentioned in documents. the officer offered to do the needful only after he was bribed. though the sks was introduced to curb corruption and harassment from revenue officers, the scheme does not have many takers. the citizens feel the scheme is not as <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">saral as it is made out to be. now the bcc is proposing changes to sks. interestingly, a large number of complaints received by lok ayukta vigilance director k.v. vasudeva murthy pertain to corruption and harassment in khata issuance. murthy, who recently reported this to lok ayukta justice n. venkatachala, stated: "this is bcc''s style of raising objections. some assistant revenue officers have their own style of functioning especially in matters relating to the khata registration and transfer. legal procedures and tax payers'' convenience do not matter." murthy observed: "it is common among revenue officials to deliberately lose documents or tamper with records if everything is found in order. this is to cause unnecessary delay and hardship." referring to the above case, murthy said: "there were no claimants, no litigation and all the required documents had been submitted. if there is no reason, create one, is the secret of the trade." with his intervention, the khata was immediately transferred in favour of the complainant. which begs the crucial question whether the lok ayukta will initiate action against such officials? "yes," says justice venkatachala. "our priority is to get relief for complainants. the next step is to initiate action against the officials." in another case, reasons as frivolous as "shifting of office, missing files and busy with other works" were cited when an applicant, subba rao of hosakerehalli, questioned officials over the delay in khata transfer. the blame was subsequently put on the applicant by officials for "tampering with the khata". "on verification, it was found that the clerk had himself tampered with the records as his demand was not fulfilled," murthy said. </span></div> </div>