By IANS
Raipur : The Chhattisgarh government Monday said it would restore the divisional commissioner system in the state that the previous Congress government abolished in November 2002.
“The state cabinet has approved the proposal to set up four divisional commissions in the state to make administration more effective and people-oriented,” Revenue Minister Brijmohan Agrawal told reporters after a meeting of the state cabinet.
“The government will send an ordinance to Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan and after the approval from the Raj Bhawan, the government will issue notification,” he said.
The state will have four divisions with headquarters at Raipur, Bilaspur, Bastar and Surguja.
The Ajit Jogi-led Congress government, which lost power to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in December 2003, scrapped the commissioner system in November 2002 and set up a Revenue Board to deal with the land revenue cases. The board system would now be abolished.
“The state will have to incur an additional expenses of Rs.30-40 million to reintroduce the divisional commissioner system,” the minister said. “The move was aimed to make the administration more effective and to address quickly the land revenue related cases at the divisional level,” Agrawal added.
The Raipur division will have six districts while Bastar will have five in its jurisdiction. The Bilaspur divisional commissioner will look after four districts, and Surguja will have three under it.