Govt lists slew of steps to ease land-owners' Dharani woes

Hyderabad: The problems being faced by farmers to claim ownership of their lands and other land details, mainly survey numbers and corrections in names, in the Dharani portal are set to come to an end. The State government has introduced a slew of new modules to address the grievances of land-owners on Dharani.

It may be mentioned here that the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Dharani _ Challenges, headed by Finance Minister T Harish Rao had recently made some recommendations to simplify the procedure to resolve issues pertaining to land ownership raised by farmers. The Revenue department was flooded with complaints from farmers that, despite possessing the title deeds, their lands have been mentioned in Bhoodan or Endowment lands category. In some cases, lands were notified in the prohibited list. The details of extent of land ownership and survey numbers are also wrongly shown in the portal.

Officials said all such issues which have been brought to the notice of government are being addressed through technical consultation. The demand to maintain privacy of ownership of lands was also accepted. From now onwards, officials said, farmers have been given the option to hide their land details from the public domain on the portal.

"The long pending demand to Right to Privacy madule has been introduced in the portal", officials said. Farmers should log in the portal and click 29th module to get access to right to privacy.

Farmers should enter mobile number, Aadhar card and title deed number in the module. They will have to enter password to hide property details in the public domain on the portal. The manual submission of a request letter to local Revenue official is also enough.

The other measures to be taken to address grievances are: establish a help desk, special awareness programme on Dharani for officials and public representatives, special action plan to address land rights in agency areas and collect fee on submission of application by farmers and mandated biometric system at all levels to safeguard the property rights during corrections. In all seven modules will be introduced in the portal; all will be in operational in a phased manner.

The officials said specific charges will be collected from farmers to address their grievances. The fee will be finalised by the Cabinet sub-committee soon.

Issues raised by realty agencies on conversion of farmlands into commercial properties and the challenges facing sale of such lands on Dharani will also be addressed in consultation with the stakeholders.