For “sensitive & graft-free dealing,” all 22 sub-registrars in Delhi would be women.

NEW DELHI: In a historic first, all 22 sub-registrars in the capital will be women officers. The services department of Delhi government on Tuesday transferred over 30 Grade-I officials of Delhi Administrative Subordinate Services cadre, sending 16 women officers to various offices of sub-registrars in different revenue districts. The services department had appointed six women officers on the post of sub-registrars in July this year.
The changes, said officials, were made on the instructions of lieutenant governor Vinai Kumar Saxena to chief secretary Naresh Kumar, who also heads the services department.
Officials said after taking over as the LG, Saxena had decided that the sub-registrar offices of the Delhi government’s revenue department should be headed by women officials as it would empower women in administrative services and also ensure more “sensitive, corruption-free and empathetic” public dealing.
The sub-registrar offices are responsible for various important administrative work, including sale, purchase and lease of land and properties, sale deeds, issuing share certificates, verification of documents among others, which have a direct bearing on common people.
Officials said in the last few months, several cases of corruption had surfaced in revenue offices wherein the LG had even suspended sub-registrars for alleged negligence and financial irregularities. “With women officers at the helm, it is expected that corruption, red-tape and harassment of people prevalent at these offices will be mitigated,” said an official.
The official said that several revenue positions in the city, including deputy magistrates and sub-divisional magistrates, are now headed by women officers.
To speed up the digitisation of land records, implementing an e-court system for faster disposal of prosecution proceedings and offering faceless services at sub-registrar offices, the LG had appointed three women officers in the revenue department to oversee the projects.
To make its records digital and offer seamless and online services to people, the revenue department has launched three ambitious projects – ‘e-Courts’, ‘e-Platform’ and ‘Revenue Estates’.
Under the ‘Revenue Estates’ project, the government has taken up a mammoth task of digitising records of all government land – gram sabha, panchayat and enemy property (custodial land), and the parcels acquired or in process of acquisition, and make it available on the central server and website.
With the ‘e-Platform’ project, the government is trying to make all sub-registrar offices faceless and to provide online services to people.