Ponguleti sets 1-year deadline for statewide land survey to end rows

Hyderabad: Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy has directed officials to conduct a comprehensive re-survey of lands across Telangana in the presence of farmers, aiming to provide a permanent solution to long-pending land disputes. The government has set a target of completing the survey of every inch of land in the state within the next year.

The minister instructed tahsildars to visit villages where the re-survey is being conducted daily, while RDOs, Additional Collectors and District Collectors should supervise the process continuously and visit the villages at least once a week.

He said the government was committed to providing every landowner with secure and dispute-free land records, along with official passbooks. He described the proposed land records as an 'Aadhaar card' for every piece of land, ensuring greater security for landowners.

Ponguleti was speaking at a comprehensive review meeting held at the Medchal-Malkajgiri Collectorate on Wednesday to review land surveys, revenue matters, stamps and registrations, and housing-related issues in the erstwhile Ranga Reddy district. Minister and district in-charge D Sridhar Babu also attended the meeting.

The minister said the comprehensive land survey, one of the government's flagship initiatives, would be launched in the first phase in selected revenue villages across all districts in accordance with the provisions of law.

He said that unlike previous reviews held in Hyderabad with state-level officials, the government was now conducting district-level meetings involving public representatives, senior officials and field-level revenue staff to address ground-level problems.

Officials selected randomly from mandal-level offices were asked to explain pending applications, public objections and practical difficulties encountered during the survey. The minister directed them to place the facts transparently before the government and identify the permissions, guidelines and policy decisions required to resolve the issues.

Ponguleti pointed out that a comprehensive land survey of this scale was being undertaken in the state after nearly 125 years. He said the exercise would not be confined to measuring land but would also address long-standing discrepancies between official survey records and actual physical possession.

The survey would help resolve several complicated issues, including boundary disputes between the Revenue and Forest Departments, problems relating to patta lands and discrepancies in land boundaries, he added.

The minister also directed officials to examine issues relating to Section 22A that were not covered by existing Government Orders (GOs) or official memos and take appropriate steps to resolve them.

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Venkateshwarlu Kolishetty

Venkateshwarlu Kolishetty