The District Collector
- The District Collector is the head of district administration.
- The office of the collector at first was created by Warren Hastings in 1772 for the dual purpose of collecting revenue and dispensing justice.
- Strictly speaking, the collector is for the collection of land revenue in the beginning. But, at present, there are enormous functions for the district collector.
The general roles and functions of the district collector are following:
- As a Collector, he has to collect land revenue.
- As District Magistrate, he has to maintain law and order in the district.
- As District Officer, he has to deal with the personnel matters like salary, transfer, etc within the district.
- As Development Officer, he is responsible for the implementation of rural development programmes.
- As the Returning Officer, he is the chief for the elections to the Parliament, the State Legislative Assembly, and the local government in the district.
- Hence, he coordinates the election works at the district level.
- As the District Census Officer, he conducts the census operations once in ten years.
- As the Chief Protocol Officer, he has to protect the VIPS in their tour and stay in the district.
- As the coordinator, he supervises the district level other functionaries and departments. He presides over the District Plan Implementation Committee.
- He acts as the official representative of the state government during the ceremonial functions in the district.
- He acts as the Public Relations Officer of the state government.
- He acts as the Crisis Administrator in chief during the natural calamities and other emergencies. He supervises and controls the local government institutions.
- He handles the work pertaining to civil defence; and
- He is responsible for civil supplies, food and other essential commodities.
- Hence, the District Collector is multi-functionary in the district level.
- In fact, the workload functions are more to a collector due to the welfare state policy in which the government has to implement a large number of programmes for the people.
- Actually, the office of the District Collector is very much prestigious. The District Collector is the hero of the district administration.