FILE P · 9 pages

How Things Work

Step-by-step: how each kind of file actually moves.

• District attachment training: the rotation, and what to take from it

  After the MCRHRDI foundation course and departmental training, a probationary Deputy Collector is attached to a district and rotated through the Collectorate sections, an RDO office, a Tahsil office (with an independent-charge stint), Survey & Land Records, the Sub-Registrar, Treasury, police station and courts, and the ZP/MPDO — keeping a trainee diary and casebook, doing a village stay with a socio-economic survey, and clearing the departmental tests before probation is declared. The exact 2026 schedule is batch-specific; go by the joining instructions.

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• Mutation: how land changes hands in the record

  Registered sales mutate automatically at registration (Bhu Bharati s.5). Succession goes to the Tahsildar under s.7, who must give notice, enquire and decide within 30 days — silence means deemed mutation. Court decrees and assignments go to the RDO under s.8. Appeals climb under s.15: Tahsildar/Sub-Registrar → RDO (60 days) → Collector or Land Tribunal (30 days), with CCLA revision under s.16. Fees are per Schedule B of the 2025 Rules.

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• Caste, income and residence certificates: how they actually move

  The citizen applies at MeeSeva; the application lands in the Tahsildar's login and is marked for field enquiry through the Deputy Tahsildar and RI (with the GPO where posted); on the enquiry report the Tahsildar issues a digitally signed certificate back through MeeSeva. Caste (community) certificates are statutory documents under the 1993 community-certificates legislation — issued after enquiry, on a one-time-issue principle, cancellable with prosecution if false. Income certificates attest a current fact and are treated as time-limited; residence certificates sit in between.

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• The 6-A case: PDS rice from seizure to confiscation

  When PDS stock is seized under the Essential Commodities Act, the seizure is reported without unreasonable delay to the District Collector, who may confiscate the stock and the vehicle under Section 6-A — but only after a written show-cause notice, a written representation and a personal hearing under 6-B, and only by a reasoned order. Appeal lies within one month to the state-appointed judicial authority under 6-C. In Telangana the enquiry and drafting is classic Deputy Collector work, and the case stands or falls on the evidence that the rice is PDS rice.

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• Sand and minor minerals: the reach, the pass, the seizure

  Sand is a minor mineral run as a state monopoly: the Collector-chaired District Level Sand Committee identifies reaches, TGMDC operates them and sells only through the SSMMS portal, and every lorry moves on a transit pass. A lorry without a valid pass is per se illegal — the Tahsildar can seize it, penalty runs at about ₹2,000 per MT plus the sand cost, and repeat offenders face MMDR Act prosecution. The RDO leads the division's task-force raids.

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• Jamabandi: the annual audit of the village accounts

  Jamabandi is the yearly settlement of every village's revenue accounts: an inspecting officer of RDO/DRO rank sits with the village records, checks register against register — pahani against demand, collection against remittance — and closes the fasli year's demand in the faisal patti. The practice decayed to near-extinction in the Dharani years when village accounts and VROs disappeared; Section 13 of the Bhu Bharati Act, which routes every RoR change back into village accounts, is its statutory road back.

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• Arms licences: the DM's file in the C section

  Arms licences for ordinary firearms are granted by the District Magistrate under the Arms Act, 1959 and the Arms Rules, 2016: application, mandatory police verification, then grant or reasoned refusal under ss. 13–14. Licences run five years, an individual may hold at most two firearms, every licence must carry a unique identification number on the national database, and the DM can suspend or revoke under s. 17 — with appeal under s. 18. The file lives in the Collectorate's C section, and its real discipline is the noting: verify, reason, record.

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• Exhumation: the 196(4) order and the graveside discipline

  Under BNSS s. 196(4), a Magistrate holding an inquiry into a cause of death may order a buried body disinterred and examined. The order must be reasoned — why the examination is necessary, what is to be done — and the spot work is a fixed drill: the Magistrate present, the medical officer, panch witnesses, photography, identification, and a fresh post-mortem. Relatives must be informed and allowed to attend under s. 196(5). Done properly it is a half-day's disciplined work; done casually it destroys the very evidence it was meant to recover.

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• LRS 2020: processing the regularisation pile

  About 25 lakh applications filed under LRS 2020 (G.O.Ms.No. 131, MA&UD, 31-08-2020) sat frozen for years and are now being cleared under fresh guidelines through a four-level flow: portal scrutiny (with 1% of cleared cases going to the Tahsildar for random verification and government/prohibited-land checks), the ULB's Town Planning officer, the Municipal Commissioner, and the Additional Collector (Local Bodies) for layout-level approvals. Eligibility stays keyed to plots registered on or before 26-08-2020. A 25% fee rebate window ran 01-05-2026 to 31-07-2026 for pending cases; its aftermath is unverified. Plots in FTL, buffer or prohibited lands are refused or held — the revenue interface is exactly there.

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