Hyderabad: Stamps & registration department to set up 40 offices

Hyderabad: The stamps and registration department has decided to open 40 more offices to help citizens and ease the burden on existing facilities. After this is done, the department will have 181 offices to meet the growing demand for registration of documents.

This apart, the department has secured financial clearance to recruit 150 outsourcing personnel. It has a vacancy of 380 officials and had written to government to recruit 300 employees.

According to highly placed sources in the department, Mr T. Chiranjeevulu, inspector-general, registrations and stamps proposed, at a review meeting, an increase in the number of sub-registrar offices.

The number of registrations in the past two financial years has increased by 33.10 per cent — 11,36,372 in 2017-18 and 15,12,468 in 2018-19 — and by 50 per cent so far this year. The department has  already registered 5 lakh documents in the first three months of the financial year.

Sources said that in order enhance accountability and curb double registrations, the department proposes to amend Section 22 pertaining to document verification prior to registration and include Section 22 B where verification of encumbrance certificate (EC) of the property will be made mandatory. This had been scrapped by the High Court in 2007.

Apart from proposing filling existing vacant posts of permanent employees and recruiting 300 outsourcing employees for better administration, the department has also requested `1,000 crore to construct offices with sophisticated infrastructure.

A senior official said that the department has proposed setting up 100 new offices, 40 of them immediately, to meet the demand of document registration. In order to prevent the duplication of document registration, the department has integrated the database of all municipalities and revenue department with the stamps and registration department.

The official said that this move was already yielding better results. He said that after the formation of the state, the number of document registration had increased from 7 to 15 lakh and was expected to increase by 20 lakh during the current financial year.