Patna: BJP minister Ram Narayan Mandal heads a department which has been blamed for slow implementation of central projects in the state-revenue and land reforms.

After claiming that his department was doing its best, Mandal admitted that there were hurdles.

"The land holdings have got smaller and smaller. A piece of land showed on the records, will have over one dozen share holders. It is creating hindrance in acquiring land," he told The Telegraph on Friday.

The minister also pointed out towards the understaffed department he had inherited. "There is a shortage of amins (land surveyors) and halka karamcharis (land revenue collector). Immediately after I joined, I moved a proposal for appointing employees. But that has to be done by the Bihar Employees' Selection Commission. I have been putting pressure on the commission to speed up the process. The lack of employees has not happened during my tenure. It is because of lack of recruitment for the past 20 years," he remarked.

Mandal, however, claims that during his tenure he had started online mutation of land.

"Till date we have received over 16,000 applications for mutation of land. Quite a few of them have been processed. There are always hiccups when a new system is introduced. But I propose to take the matter further by introducing phase-wise on-line payment of land revenue," he said, adding: "I have taken steps which have not been taken in the past 70 years."

The minister's department recently claimed that it had already handed over 60 to 70 per cent of the land to central agencies and was trying to finish off. It has maintained that the land survey is old and it was difficult to identify the real owners of the land.

The department claimed that all officials concerned have been asked to hold a meeting twice a month to speed up land acquisition for central projects.