District Collector and Magistrate

 

District Collector and Magistrate

District Collector is an important administrative post in India at district level. The District Collector also acts as the District Magistrate. The post of the District Collector is held by a senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer. During British rule IAS Officers were called as Indian Civil Service (ICS) Officers.

According to historians the credit for creating the post and office of the District Collector goes to Warren Hastings. He served as the first Governor of Bengal Presidency from 20 October 1773 to 8 February 1785. Hastings created the office of the District Collector in 1772. Later on the Collector came to be called as Diwan and also Amil. But again since 1787 the nomenclature District Collector came to be used.

District Collector was the most powerful and influential government officer during British rule . Even today this post remains most coveted among the civil or government servants and wields lots of power and prestige.

Important functions or responsibilities of the District Collector were to look after the overall administration of the district, to collect the land revenue from the entire district and most importantly to maintain the law and order in the district. As maintaining law and order is one of the crucial jobs of the District Collector even Superintendent of Police have to report to the Collector whenever called by him or her.

Being at the helm of the revenue administration at the district level the matters like registration of land, alterations in the land, adding new names and cancellation of old names from the land documents, hearing and settling the land related disputes, etc. were and still looked after by the District Collector. Even during the natural calamities like famines and disasters like floods, earthquakes, landslides, etc. the District Collector’s office plays vital role in organising rescue operations and giving relief and also the rehabilitation of the affected people.

As mentioned above the District Collector was also the District Magistrate. In this capacity he looked after the law and order and also supervised the police. In the capacity of District Magistrate he used to look after the judicial matters and organised hearing of the cases. Of course, most of these cases used to be related to land matters.

In present scenario yet another crucial role played by the District Collector is to oversee the process of the Elections held in the district. From the preparation of the Voter’s List to the declaration of the Election Results the District Collector remains occupied and sees to it that this entire exercise is conducted in a systematic impartial and smooth manner.

Apart from above mentioned responsibilities the District Collector carries out many more tasks at District level. The immediate superior officer of the Collector is the Divisional Commissioner. The District Collector has to report to the Divisional Commissioner whenever required so.

The other District level officers like the General Surgeon of the Civil Hospital, the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Executive Engineer of the Public Works Department (PWD), etc. were required to report about the activities and developments in their respective departments.

During British period the post of the District Collector was mostly held by the White Europeans. But some Indians like Anundoram Borooah and Brajendranath De went on to become the District Collectors in nineteenth century. They had cleared the Indian Civil Service (ICS) Examination.

 

Most of the functions of the District Collector have been retained in the post independence period.  Even today the District Collector remains the vital officer at district level and is very important in the government machinery in order to implement various government schemes.