Fresh digital, manual surveys sought to fix land title issues in Telangana

Minister says draft of the new legislation proposed on the record of rights to replace ‘Dharani’ would be kept in the public domain for three weeks.

A majority of the members who participated in the short discussion on ‘Telangana Land Rights & Reforms’ in the Legislative Assembly on Friday requested the State government to institute both digital and manual land survey to fix every title with longitude and latitude details as also the extent of different categories of land and in the process, end the disputes to a large extent.

Initiating the discussion, Minister for Revenue Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy said the draft of the new legislation proposed on the record of rights to replace ‘Dharani’ with ‘Bhoo Maatha’ would be kept in the public domain (CCLA website) for three weeks from August 2 to enable all sections of people to give suggestions. The legislation made by the previous government complicated the land rights issue instead of addressing problems and disputes, he opined.

Congress member P. Sanjeeva Reddy (Narayankhed) pointed out that Dharani had issued land title to those who sold their lands 2-3 generations ago on ‘sada bainama’ (land transactions on plain paper) to others, who had been in possession/cultivation of such lands since then, and no efforts were made by the previous government to rectify the mistakes and resolve the issues. He requested the government to get a fresh land survey done to address many contentious issues related to land rights.

Palla Rajeshwar Reddy (Jangaon) of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi defended Dharani stating that it had ensured clear land titles to 90% of the total extent of cultivable land (160 lakh acres) after the 35,750 revenue staff checked land records in a month, and said the problems could be attributed to portal, revenue and personal (dispute) issues.

Requesting the government to publicise the details of those who benefited from the irregularities in Dharani and ‘vanished’ lands so that people could know who was enjoying the lands, A. Maheshwar Reddy (Nirmal) of the Bharatiya Janata Party also sought to know the fate of assigned lands, which he said had come down to 5 lakh acres in 2023 from 24 lakh acres in 2014. He also wanted the fresh land survey along with a forensic audit to find out those who committed irregularities in land records.

Akbaruddin Owaisi (Chandrayangutta) of the AIMIM asked the government why it was not resuming 860 acres land allotted to IMG-Bharat even after the High Court order/ judgment given in March this year, and suggested it file a caveat in the Supreme Court. He observed that one of the main reasons that had brought Congress to power was irregularities in Dharani and sufferings of people due to it.

Another Congress member Vedma Bhojju (Khanapur) pointed out that even former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s family itself could not resolve issues involving it in Dharani as their land extent was shown higher in record, which they had mentioned in their election affidavits.