CM asks officials to make land ownership records public

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao has instructed the officials concerned to filter all the land records in the Telangana State and make public, details on who owns the land.

For this, the Chief Minister wanted officials to conduct a special drive all over the State for survey and settlement. Henceforth, he said all the land transactions both sale and purchase, should be done in a transparent way. He wanted Pattadars pass books and Pahani documents should be done in a simple way and put an end to confusion. The land transactions and records should be maintained in a transparent way like the bank transactions. He has instructed the officials to plan out a strategy to filter the land records and make future transactions simple and transparent. He also asked them to prepare an action plan to implement survey settlement with village as a unit and launch the survey as early as possible.

The Chief Minister held a high-level review meeting on filtering the land records at Pragati Bhavan here on Monday. Government’s Chief Advisor Rajeev Sharma, Chief Secretary SP Singh, senior officials S Narsing Rao, BR Meena, Jayesh Ranjan, Shanti Kumari, Priyadarshini, Nadeem Ahmed, Smita Sabharwal, Bhoopal Reddy, Venkateswara Rao, Rangareddy Collector Raghunandan Rao, Joint Collector Sunder Abnar and others participated.

In the seven-hour marathon discussion, several important and major decisions were taken. Except during the Nizam’s rule in 1936, land records are never scrutinized or filtered. This is causing several disputes, issues and difficulties. The land disputes are also becoming law and order problems. To put an end to the land disputes, it is decided to survey the entire land in the state taking help from Survey of India and other agencies in the country.

“From the next year, the government has decided to give Rs 4000 per acre for crop for two crops Rs 8000 in a year as an input assistance to the farmer. For this purpose the agriculture department has conducted a survey in the villages. But the data collected by the agriculture department is not matching with the revenue records. If agriculture department stated that there are 300 farmers in a particular village, the revenue records showed it as 1100. In such a case whom will the government give money? If the assistance is given to people without any accountability and denying the eligible farmers, it will become a scam and the government will get a bad name. Eligible farmers will not get the money,” the Chief Minister said.

The Chief Minister said there were other problems if the land records are not correct and proper. “There is a room for corruption and land and order issues are also cropping up. Land disputes are also leading to murder. To put an end to all this, there is need to survey the entire land in the state and get clarity on who owns what land? The revenue department should conduct a special drive for this. The survey should be done with village as unit. Get clarity on how much land is there? Which land is registered on whose name? Prepare details on 2.70 crore acres of land in the State under what categories the land is shown. By doing such a filtration once, schemes like Rs 4000 per acre for two crops will be successful and will reach the actual beneficiaries. This will also put an end to the disputes in future,” the CM said.

“Land neither increase or decrease and the extent will remain the same. It is enough if we get clarity on whose name the land is registered. It is enough if the records at the village level are rectified. Survey should be conducted in 10,850 revenue villages in the state. Depute 3,500 revenue officers and make them in charge of three villages. Conduct the survey for fifteen days in each village under the guidance of villagers and the farmers Association. There are several technical tools are available now for the conduct of the survey. Take help from the Survey of India and other agencies in the country,” he said.

KCR said since this is a good programme, people would also cooperate. “Collectors to other revenue officers will not be given another works other than this till the survey is over. There is a lot of confusion in the Pattadars pass books and pahani papers being issued now. There is no need for so many columns, make it simple. Once the filtration is over, put the details online. Give new passbooks after the survey. Give a unique identity number for each land. If need be, put border stones to the lands. The details available at the village level should be the same with the CCLA. In case of any change, it should be reflected at all levels online. Like the instant messages one gets while withdrawing cash from an ATM and the same is modified in the bank records, similarly, land records should also have such facility. Use the technology being used by the banks,” the Chief Minister said.