UPA’s Bhu Bharathi was a joke: KCR

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, reiterating his announcement of a digital survey to fix coordinates for every survey number in the State, countered allegations of Congress MLC Jeevan Reddy that efforts to cleanse land records were already made during the UPA regime through Bhu Bharathi, a pilot project for an integrated land information system in Nizamabad district.

The Chief Minister, replying to the discussion on the new Revenue Act in the Legislative Council on Monday, said the verification process under Bhu Bharathi was a big joke. “The project was never completed. Instead, land-related litigations increased in that district after that. In fact, the Congress has displayed its true colours today demanding that the new revenue Bill be sent to select committee,” he said, calling for unanimous passage of the Bill.

The Chief Minister argued that it was wrong to say that every single acre in the State was under some dispute. “If you visit a village, you will find that 99.9 per cent of the system is working and farmers are cultivating their land in peace. Maybe 0.1 per cent of land could be under litigation. In fact, no one after Nizam had undertaken cleansing of records like we are doing since the others considered it too risky,” he said.

He said that there were so many agencies offering digital survey service that the government was even considering handing over survey of each district to one agency. “We will not hesitate to spend money on this exercise. There may be a few disputes here and there, but we need not worry about it as our final aim is to give a conclusive title,” he said.

Reiterating his government’s stand on not including the name of tenant in records, he said the concept was prevalent when there was landlordism. “The TRS took a stand that we will not penalise the owner of the land for giving it on rent. Every year the owner might change the tenant, the government is not here to take note of every such change,” he said, countering a suggestion made by the Congress. He also assured BJP MLC N Ramachander Rao that the pattadar passbooks would become irrelevant once the Dharani portal was launched. “You are saying a few banks are keeping the passbook with them to give loans, but as per RBI directions, they are not supposed to do so,” he said.

Fast-track tribunals

The Chief Minister said that there were 16,136 cases pending before the revenue courts and the government would take the help of Collectors and retired Collectors to man fast-track tribunals to resolve these pending issues once for all. “They will be fast track and time-bound. There will be no more revenue courts,” he said. Allaying apprehensions about the Wakf and Endowment lands, the Chief Minister said that no transaction could take place as these lands would be locked in the Dharani portal. However, he said Christian lands had no such mechanism such as wakf that maintains the record of their lands. He said all the lands owned by NRIs would be protected and the government was mulling accepting passports in lieu of Aadhaar cards, he said.

He further said many had doubts about the vacuum created by the scrapping of the VRO system but certain cushion needs to be provided during the transition. “We have Agriculture Extension Officers all over the State, and we are also planning to set up a call centre in the initial days to clear doubts during the transition from the present system to the Dharani-based mutations and registrations,” the Chief Minister said.

He said VROs would be absorbed mostly into the Irrigation and Panchayat Raj Departments and a few might be allowed to work in the same village to help clear doubts. “Land and all that related with it is a multiple-knot issue, and we are ready to solve all that in the most transparent way with the help of a system-centric programme where no single officer will have discretion,” he said.

Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, Jeevan Reddy, Ramachander Rao, Katepally Janardhan Reddy, Syed Aminul Hasan Jafri and Riyajul Hasan Effendi participated in the discussion. Chairman Gutha Sukender Reddy also made several suggestions.

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