Congress hails Revenue Bill, points out loopholes

Hyderabad: The Congress, while welcoming the reforms taken up by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government in the form of new Revenue Bill, stated that the draft Bill had shortcomings that should be addressed to expect the desired results. Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka spoke at length during the debate on the Bill in Assembly on Friday.

He said the digitisation of land records had its advantages, but there was a danger of the Dharani website being hacked and tampering of records to change the names of owners. Hence, care should be taken to enter all records manually also, he stressed.

Vikaramarka also spoke about the comprehensive land survey that was taken up by the government few years. He said more than 16,000 unresolved cases under the B category, which contributes to 15 percent of lands in the State, were still pending. He wanted to know from the government how they would solve these cases when passbooks will be issued, and records entered on the website.

Further, he said that non-cultivable lands and non-agriculture lands in villages were not entered in records, as they were not entitled to get Rythu Bandhu. "These are patta lands and the property owners are concerned as their pleas for passbooks have fell on deaf ears all these while," he said and requested the government to look into the issue.

Further, he said that assigned lands that were handed over to Dalits and Tribals several decades ago and in their possession since then were being taken forcefully for construction of Rythu Samanvaya Samithi offices, Vaikunta Dhamams, parks as well as for Irrigation projects and canals. Why only Dalits and Tribal lands are being taken away not touching others in the village, he questioned.

Despite Jamabandhis being held in villages by RDOs and other senior officials every year, there are still scores of land disputes. If the existing system is scrapped even before completion of the survey and updating of records, the road ahead would be very difficult. MROs cannot visit each village and resolve land disputes, Bhatti felt.

Further, he said 2 lakh Sadabainama cases were still pending and had to be addressed. Bhatti suggested that the government choose a public software agency, Central or State, to allot running of the Dharani website as private firms can leave the job midway which happened in case of a government project in Karnataka.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao tried to clarify a few points raised by Bhatti interrupting his speech twice. He said that 16,000 pending applications of B category under land survey scheme would be resolved by constituting fast track tribunals in a set period of time.

As regards the scrapping of VROs, he said that the government had to take the decision because of graft complaints from the public in villages. He, however, assured that the government would take alternative measures to ensure land survey and other initiatives are not affected.