Telangana brings new Act to streamline revenue administration
Hyderabad, Dec 18: The Congress government in Telangana has brought a new revenue law to streamline the system and do away with the Dharani portal system of the previous BRS government.
Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy on Wednesday tabled in State Assembly Telangana Bhu Bharati (Record of Rights in Land) Bill, 2024 in place of Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 2020 enacted by the previous government.
The minister told the House that the government is throwing Dharani into the Bay of Bengal as promised in the Assembly elections last year as many people suffered because of Dharani.
He clarified that Dharani is being abolished to ensure hassle-free land transactions and solve the problems faced by people.
He said the new Act would rectify the lapses in the present legislation, which dealt a blow to the land administration.
The minister claimed that the Act would provide protection to the poor small landholders who are in physical possession of the land but had no papers.
The new Act provisions for the creation of Bhudhar, records for all land parcels across the state, and issuance of Bhudhar cards for protecting the ownership rights as well as ensuring access to the land details with a click of a mouse.
Bhudhar, like Adhaar, will give a unique identification number to every farmer. Lack of such a number for land parcels was leading to boundary disputes and was also proving a hurdle in maintaining revenue records.
The Act provides for a redressal mechanism for the rectification of entries in the Record of Rights and would create an appeal mechanism at different levels. It has a provision for adjudication of land entered into Part-B, over an extent of 18.26 lakh acres, for which digital signature was not done.
The legislation provides for the preparation of new Record of Rights after re-survey and updation of the existing records through a special program. This is expected to provide major relief to scores of landowners who complained of numerous mistakes creeping into their land records.
The Bill envisages streamlining the process of record of rights and also creating a record for Abadi and non-agricultural lands which was hitherto absent. The Act also provides for regularisation of sadabainamas, land transactions on plain paper, for which over 9 lakh applications were received in the past. Besides creating a user-friendly and hassle-free online portal for maintaining the record of rights, the new Act aims at protecting the government lands.
The revenue minister announced that a revenue official would be appointed for every village. A tribunal will be constituted for appeals on land disputes.
Srinivas Reddy recalled that because of the Dharani portal brought by the previous BRS government, land registration had come to a halt for four months.
The minister said the number of modules under the new Act will be reduced to six from 33 in the present Dharani system.
He pointed out that a committee was constituted to draft the Bill and it was revised 22 to 23 times.
He said the draft Bill was kept on the website for 40 days. The draft incorporated suggestions given by the MLAs and intellectuals. He said the written suggestions of BRS MLA Harish Rao were also incorporated in the draft Act.
Debate was also held on the draft Bill for one day in all 33 district Collectorates in the state.
Srinivas Reddy said that Bhu Bharati Bill has been brought after studying Record of Rights Acts in 18 states.