Telangana: Farmland registrations in a day

Hyderabad: After Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bheema flagship schemes, Telangana farmers are set to get another benefit from the government. The farmers will no longer have to wait for long to get their passbook and land mutations done.

As part of reforms in the Revenue department, the State government has finalised a revenue code to complete all farmland registrations and mutations in 24 hours. The proposed reform will be presented before the ensuing Assembly session and once adopted it will be part of the new Revenue Act.

Once the Act comes into force, Mandal Revenue Officer (MRO) will be authorised to register the revenue lands directly and issue passbooks without any interference of the Registration and Stamps department. On a pilot basis, MROs were already registering the lands in some identified mandals.

Top officials said that nearly 1.16 lakh applications for land mutations were pending before the government due to various reasons. In 2018, the State government had set 15 days deadline to complete the mutation process following piling up of the applications in the Revenue department.

But the officials as usual were not disposing off the application on one pretext or another and demanding bribe from the farmers.

The new Revenue Act will put an end to all the laborious process adopted in the land registration and mutation of the same by introducing a transparent official mechanism. Within a day after the registration process is over, electronic Title Deeds will be issued first. In a short time, passbook will be delivered to the buyer at his doorsteps.

The entire process from filing the application for land registration, mutation and issuance of passbook will be done online. Chances of tampering with revenue records will be minimised by digitising all the documents under the new Revenue Act. A hassle-free separate wing will also be created to address the grievances of farmers in all MRO offices. It will empower the district Collectors to address the farmland disputes expeditiously.

The Collectors will be given extraordinary powers which includes disposal of pending applications based on the official enquiry reports.

Officials said that the proposal to rename the entire Revenue department as Land Administration department is under consideration. Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao will take a final decision on it before the Bill is introduced in the Assembly.