Karanam, Munisif system to return: CM YS Jagan Mohon Reddy

Vijayawada: The State government is contemplating to reintroduce the Karanam and Munisif system and restart the Jamabandi programme to deal with Revenue administrative matters at the grassroot level in all the 21,848 villages across the state.

The proposed reversal to the Karanam-Munisif system, however, may have a new nomenclature. Under the proposed system, the village revenue officers and village surveyors along with the secretariat staff will take part in the programme to purify the land records. Further, the government has also a plan to levy tax on agriculture lands as part of creating a strong right to landowners and avoid disputes. The Revenue department has already chalked out a plan, for which the Chief Minister is likely to give his nod and issue orders on Saturday.

Indeed, the state government scrapped the Karanam and Munsif system almost three decades ago. The Karanam and Munisif are used to work as village headmen. Especially, they had the responsibility to maintain land records. The Karanam and Munisif used to conduct the Jamabandi once in a year as an annual programme.

As per the programme, they used to review the whole land transactions and also collect the taxes from landowners. Under this system, the Revenue Minister P Subhash Chandra Bose said the land documents were perfectly maintained and the land disputes were minimal.

There used to be a separate system to maintain land records by classifying private and government lands. Moreover, the land tax system was also a priority for both the landowners and Karanam and Munisif system. The tax payment receipt was the most valuable paper to the owners and tax collection was also one of the main duties of Karanam and Munisif.

The cancellation of the ancient system created confusion in the revenue land records system and created land disputes. In this backdrop, the government wants to reintroduce the system in a different format.

Under the new system, the village revenue officer and village surveyor will discharge their duties on the lines of Karanam and Munisif. As per the official data, there are village revenue officers in all the villages across the state. The government has almost completed the surveyors' recruitment under the new village secretariat system. Now the village revenue officers and surveyors will work on the lines of Munisif and Karanam system.

The village surveyor and village revenue officer should maintain the total land records, including the list of landowners and field level maps as their responsibility. Every new land sale transaction will be recorded at the village secretariat and their certification is valid for the registration process.