Telangana plans new legislation to overcome land-related problems

Hyderabad: The Telangana government on Friday announced that it will bring a new comprehensive legislation to overcome problems regarding land ownership and find a permanent solution to the issues created by the Dharani portal introduced by the previous BRS government.

Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy said that the new legislation will be formulated after an all-party meeting and extensive consultations.

At a review meeting on the Dharani portal with his Cabinet colleagues and senior officials, he called for suggestions from people for a system to address land-related disputes. He asserted that a detailed study needs to be conducted to find a permanent solution to every problem which is being faced in the use of Dharani.

The Chief Minister wanted officials to formulate a comprehensive Act in view of the increasing land ownership problems every day in the state. He observed that after the introduction of the Dharani portal by the previous government, the land records which were once available at the village level were shifted to the state headquarters, and all powers to solve land issues were delegated to the district Collectors in the place of village and mandal authorities. Further, the Collectors ' decisions have become unilateral and the land issues are not being solved in the Dharani portal. To overcome all such challenges, the Chief Minister asked the officials to hold extensive consultations with people and seek their suggestions.

The Revenue officials have been asked to select a mandal where Bhudan, Poramboku, Bancharayi, Inam, and Kandishika land issues have been pending and prepare a comprehensive report to get clarity on each land-related issue.

The CM also said that if required a debate will be taken up on Dharani in the ongoing budget session of the Assembly and a final decision taken.

The Congress, in its election manifesto, had promised to scrap Dharani and replace it with the ‘Bhumata’ portal by amending the Record of Rights (ROR) Act.

During his Budget speech on Thursday, Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka accused the previous government of having brought in Dharani with a mala fide intention of robbing some of the rightful owners of their land. The illegalities, and errors committed during the feeding of land information in the portal have resulted in hardships for innumerable landowners and farmers, he said.

He mentioned that as per the assurance given to the people, the government constituted a committee to study the problems that arose due to Dharani. As per the recommendations of the committee, in the first phase, a special drive for resolution of grievances was taken up from March 1 to 15, 2024 under the supervision of District Collectors. A total of 2,26,740 applications were pending as on March 1 and 1,22,774 were received during the drive taking the total to 3,49,514.

He said since March 1, a total of 1,79,143 grievances have been resolved.

"We have brought in 10 informative modules pertaining to 35 types of transactions in the Dharani portal. These modules will solve the field-level problems to some extent. We are reviewing the status of these grievances with Collectors from time to time. After a complete study by the Dharani committee, a final decision will be taken for a permanent resolution of the problem," he had said.