Revenue babus make a killing

Mahbubnagar: The recent land purification drive of the State government has come as a blessing in disguise to the Revenue department officials in Mahabubnagar district, as majority of Village Revenue officers (VROs) and Mandal Revenue Officers (MRO) are using this opportunity to earn some extra bucks by way of bribes and kickbacks.

In fact, the government had introduced the land revenue records purification drive to streamline the long pending land issues and to ensure that all the available land records are updated into online database in the State.

However, the Revenue department officials used this drive to earn extra bucks by taking advantage of problems of the public. "The VROs who play key role in ensuring identifying the lands of the farmers, have become habituated to taking bribes to get the land records updated into the online database.

It is commonly known unless and until we give Rs 2,000 per acre no VRO will forward our papers for updating into the online rerecords," says Redya Nayak, a farmer who had paid bribe to the revenue officials to update his 20 guntas of land into ROR.

The modus operandi is that when the farmers who apply for land mutation with the revenue officials, the authorities will have to examine the documents of lands and prepare the proceedings.

The proceeding will later be examined by the MRO and then will be sent to the data entry operator to get updated. Here in MRO offices, unless and until the land owners and farmers whose lands are to be updated they will not go to online recording unless and until some amount is being paid to the VRO as bribe.

The recent incident of ACB cracking down on Keshampet MRO Lavanya is an evident case to prove the well established inhibited bribe system in the Revenue offices. If the land is having any litigation than it is a boon for the revenue officials as they have the opportunity to demand exorbitant amount as bribe to clear the litigation against the parties who pay them the maximum amount.

After the expose of Keshampet mandal MROs illegal earnings through bribes, the social media is agog with videos MRO Raju of CC mandal, Mallikarjuna MRO of Padara mandal who are caught red handed on the video tapes taking bribes. The public are demanding the government to clear the Revenue department of this bribing filth by the Tahasildar offices across Mahabubnagar district.