Ponguleti cracks whip on Dharani portal fraud

Hyderabad: Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy has issued a stern directive to state officials to initiate the strictest possible action against individuals found misappropriating government funds through land registration fraud.

During a high-level review meeting held on Sunday at his residence in the Ministers’ Quarters, the Minister examined serious irregularities in stamp duty payments recently uncovered in Jangaon and other regions across Telangana. An extensive audit of transactions from the past five years has revealed 4,800 discrepancies out of a total of 52 lakh registrations. A significant majority of these cases—nearly 3,000—are concentrated in the Ranga Reddy and Yadadri Bhuvanagiri districts. The Minister asserted that the revenue machinery has identified specific instances where challan amounts paid by the public for land registrations were diverted or misappropriated.

Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy expressed strong indignation over the exploitation of technical loopholes in the Dharani portal, a system introduced by the previous administration. He identified the lack of a robust auditing mechanism within the portal as the primary catalyst for these irregularities. To address this, he clarified that an in-depth investigation is underway to pinpoint those responsible, with instructions to register criminal cases where necessary.

The Minister made it clear that the probe will not stop at external intermediaries. He has ordered a thorough investigation into whether revenue officials were complicit in these discrepancies, stating that no individual, regardless of their rank or position, would be spared if found guilty of collusion.

Further instructions were issued for a comprehensive audit of every transaction made since the Dharani portal’s inception five years ago. Highlighting the government’s zero-tolerance policy, the Minister warned that the encroachment of government lands and the theft of even a single paisa of public funds would meet with severe legal consequences. The state is currently transitioning to the new Bhu Bharati portal, set for a full public launch in March 2026, which is designed to integrate revenue, registrations, and surveys into a single, transparent, and audited platform to prevent future fraud.