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Role and Functions of Divisional Commissioner

In this chain of supervisory area administration, the revenue administration of the collector has been superimposed by a divisional commissioner. A division is an administrative area between the district and the state government comprising 3 to 6 districts, the number varying from state to state and from division to division within a state itself.

The officer-in-charge of this area is called the commissioner who is a senior member of the Indian Administrative Service. The post was first created in 1829 when the then Bengal government established an intermediate authority between the collector and the headquarters administration in the form of commissioners of divisions.

The appointment of commissioners in the subsequently acquired provinces of Punjab, Burma, Oudh and the Central Province followed in due course. Before independence, even province in India except Madras had divisional commissioners. He was primarily a revenue official and heard appeals in revenue cases from subordinate authorities. The divisional commissioners have been called the Fifth Wheel of the car. He has little direct contact with the people. It is a promotion post for the senior members of the civil service.

The Royal Commission for Decentralisation, 1907 recommended its retention. The issue, however continued to crop up again and again, particularly at the time of constitutional reforms of 1919, 1935, and 1947. After independence, the state governments merely tinkered with traditional revenue set-up and the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Gujarat abolished the posts of divisional commissioners but later revived them. Assam too experimented with the abolition and later restitution of the post. In Uttar Pradesh, the offices of commissioners were reduced and their functions and powers were drastically cut down.

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The commissioners have been described as a ‘superfluous layer in the hierarchy’ and ‘a mere post office’ whose abolition has been asked on grounds of economy. The government also feels the need to examine the utility of the institution in the context of Panchayati Raj experiment changed set-up.

This office looks like a symbol of colonialism and people want to demolish it as a strong­holds of bureaucracy. Its retention is justified on administrative ground. The commissioners serve as a valuable link m the chain of administration between districts and the state headquarters. Even Simon Commission (1930) held that the tradition of official administration in India is against the creation of large central establishments.

The commissioner as a regional coordinating authority for technical departments is a useful link to help, guide and advise the collectors in his division. His advice to headquarters is also likely to be more mature and comprehensive than that of the collector. As the ‘area’ representative of the state government he is ‘government’ in the division.

The Decentrali­sation Commission’s (1907-09) maintained the same view when it said that “In a country like India, It is specially important to prevent any system of government by professional experts …. It is a distinct weakness in an oriental country that there should be no local officer to whom the people can go with general grievances, and that they should come to regard the government as a mere collection of scattered and independent departments.” The Administrative Reforms Commission Study Team on State Level Administration also concluded “that it is necessary to have this post for regional coordination. But the commission disagreed with its own Study Team and observed that there should not be any intermediate level of administration between the district and the government”.

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The commissioners have judicial powers to hear appeals in revenue matters from district officers in various rent, revenue and tenancy matters. Statutory powers have been conferred by acts and administrative orders in the fields of police, land acquisition, local government transport and other allied matters. He enjoys the district magistrate’s responsibility in the areas of maintenance of law and order and jail administration.

Along with collector he has special powers during crisis and emergency. He keeps a vigil on developmental activities going on in the districts of his division. His supervisory and coordinative roles include an overall supervision of general administration, law and order, land reforms, land management, food and relief administration and activities in the division of all departments/directorates and implementation of plans and non-plan development schemes.

The law enumerates the duties of the commissioner as under “Inspection of district, sub-divisional and tehsil offices; consolidation of various statistics for the division; disbursement of some grants; a large number of reports and returns in the division sent to government or the Board of Revenue, special reports including confidential reports; grant of certain types of licences for the fire arms; the sanction of certain rewards; allocation of village police and the assessment of the cost of additional police; inspection of jails and chairmanship of revision boards; general supervision over excise department; chairman of regional transport authorities; recommendations for filing government appeals; certain routine duties with regard to revenue buildings; control over certain forests; writing off of losses and stamp; etc., temporary establishments in revenue offices; general supervision over collection of land revenue; canal dues and other dues”.

Whatever may be the legal position this ‘Fifth Wheel’ in the automobile is presently criticised for his controlling role of Panchayati Raj institutions. The prefecturate of the collector is gradually shifting to the office of the regional commissioner. It is probably to reconcile the post of the district collector with the Panchayati Raj set up.

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But the bureaucratic control over local institutions may continue so the commissionerships are being strengthened. A more senior generalist bureaucrat in commissioner’s office will serve the double bureaucratic purpose, i.e:

(1) Keeping the technical officers under command, and

(2) Getting the panchayati institutions dissolved at will for a period of six months.

This bureaucratic strategy of continuing the present system, but pushing it one step higher will buy more time for postponing the democratic and technological revolution in the countryside. Howsoever senior the bureaucratic position may be, it cannot replace the authority of the state level technocrat.

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Similarly the French argument of keeping a bureaucratic supervisor over the mayors is untenable in the mass democracy of India. The administration cannot ascend up. It will have to descend down and if people’s representatives are the sovereign, the senior bureaucratic commissioner’s should not over awe them by threats of supersession temporary interventions.

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