CM holds review meeting with Collectors on land records rectification

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao felt that the revenue officials have neglected their primary duty of maintaining the revenue records, as they were busy with several welfare and development programmes of the government.

The Chief Minister blamed improper maintenance of land records led to several litigations and disputes. Therefore, the government has now decided to rectify and clean land records all over the state in the next three months. He said the Collectors, Joint Collectors, RDOs and MROs should take this programme on a top priority basis.

The Chief Minister has held a review meeting with the Collectors, Joint Collectors, and RDOs on the Land records, rectification, cleansing, and updation here on Thursday at Pragati Bhavan. Deputy CM Mohammed Ali, State Planning Commission Vice Chairman Niranjan Reddy, Mission Bhagiratha Vice Chairman Vemula Prashant Reddy, Chief Advisor to Government Rajiv Sharma, Chief Secretary SP Singh, Special Chief Secretary (Revenue) BR Meena, Mission Director (Land records Updation) Vakati Karuna, Principal Secretary (Finance) Ramakrishna Rao, PCCF PK Jha, CMO officials, select MROs and some retired revenue officials were present.

The Chief Minister said in order to implement the scheme of providing Rs. 8,000 per acre for two crops every year, the State Government called for records of farmers and their land holdings. However, he said that the reports prepared by Agriculture and Revenue Departments did not match. He said there should be absolute clarity on land ownership. But the details of agricultural land acquired by the government for various projects were not recorded. “In every village there are 80 to 95 lands, which have no dispute or litigation. Get clarity on these lands with the help of people and farmers in the village. In the second phase, identify the lands that are in litigation. We will get clarity on these land records based on the verdicts given by the courts. Identify the government lands, Wakf lands, Endowment Lands, lands under the government offices etc.,” the CM said.

“The entire responsibility of selecting the team that work in the village as part of the programme should be with the district Collectors concerned. If need be, appoint some persons on a temporary basis. We are keeping Rs 50 Lakh per Collector for the land records rectification, cleansing and updation programme. With village as a unit, identify and record the government lands, assigned lands, lands acquired by the government and other categories of the land,” the CM suggested.

KCR said that the State Government has also taken the initiative to organise farmers by forming associations. “We are forming village, mandal, District and state level farmers councils which will have representatives of all communities. “The Mandal level Farmers Councils will be in touch with those in the markets on a regular basis. Farmers should not bring the entire produce to the market at once. The Farmers Councils in consultation with the market leaders and fix the MSP. Only then the farmers village-wise should bring in their produce to the market and get the MSP. In case there is no MSP; the State farmers Council will buy the produce at a fixed price. For this purpose, the State Government besides allocating Rs 500 Crore, will also give bank guarantee to raise another Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 crore. The government will give the right to process the produce to the State Level Farmers Coordination Council. This helps the farmers to get the MSP,” the CM explained.

Ranga Reddy District Collector Raghunandan Rao, Siddipet Collector Venkatram Reddy, Miryalguda RDO Kishan Rao, Khammam Collector Lokesh Kumar, Bhongir RDO Bhoopal Reddy and others have shared their experiences when they on an experimental basis conducted the land records rectification cleansing and updation. According to them, about 95% of lands in the villages are without any litigation or disputes.