Don’t spread canards, KCR tells Congress

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has urged the main Opposition party in the State Assembly not to mislead the House and people by dishing out false information. Taking exception to the remarks made by Congress Legislature Party Deputy Leader M Bhatti Vikramarka during a short discussion on Monday on the purification and updating of the land records, the Chief Minister cautioned that such attempts would boomerang on them only. KCR rebutted the charge that the Revenue officials had been directed to take suggestions and guidance from the recently constituted Farmers Coordination Committees.

Terming such allegation as totally false, the Chief Minister demanded that the Opposition produce order or circular, if any, in this regard. He pointed out that if the previous Congress government, which was in power for 10 years, had carried out the task of purification of land records, there would not have been any need for taking up the mission now. Ninety per cent of data relating to land records from the days of construction of Nagarjunasagar and Sriram Sagar project to date had not been updated.

Citing an example, the Chief Minister said the father of the TPCC President N Uttam Kumar Reddy had sold a piece of land 15 years ago through ‘Sadabinama’ (transaction on white paper). The same had been updated recently after the government had taken up the purification and updating of land records, he pointed out.

The entire exercise was taken up when it was realised that the records, which were not updated, came in the way of distribution of input subsidy of Rs 4,000 an acre to farmers. “Ownership details relating to the government buildings, lands donated to schools, hospitals, bus stations, distributor and main irrigational canals, and even lands acquired for various projects have not been mutated in all these years,” he said. Instead of offering constructive suggestions, the Congress party had been resorting to political oratory and it would neither improve its image nor would it help people and the State, the Chief Minister asserted.

Intervening in the discussion, Leader of Opposition K Jana Reddy said all that his party member wanted to impress upon the government was that it was not the first time that such an exercise was attempted. And, the updating of land records was a continuous process, he added.

Later, Bhatti Vikramarka asked the government to appoint a committee headed by a sitting High Court Judge, or appoint a House Committee to go into the issue of land issues, including Miyapur land scam, lands allegedly grabbed by Nayeem and the State government taking away the assigned lands for Pharmacity, he said.