Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Saturday ordered a thorough probe into the agency which runs the ‘Dharani’ portal launched for land transactions by the previous BRS government.
The Chief Minister expressed serious concern on the safety of the land records of lakhs of farmers which are in the hands of foreign companies. He blamed the agency for keeping the highly confidential land data, Aadhaar and bank account details with it and also raised doubts whether the data of land records is safe.
At a review meeting with the Dharani committee constituted by his government, the Chief Minister questioned the officials about handing over the maintenance of the Dharani portal to a private agency in the place of Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA) who is supposed to handle the portal on behalf of the state government.
The officials informed the Chief Minister that the previous state government entrusted the works of design, development and management of the Dharani portal to the IL&FS company based on technical and financial bidding and qualifications in 2018.
The meeting discussed the agency’s activities which went bankrupt later and changed its name to Terrasys Technologies Limited, changed all company directors and then sold the shares to Falcon Investment Company.
Chief Minister Revanth said that it was astonishing that the company, which had won the Dharani tender for Rs 116 crores in 2018, sold its shares for around Rs 1,200 crore. He expressed doubts on change of the names of the ownership of costly lands as the agency possessed all the land records.
The Chief Minister also inquired the Revenue Department officials about the complaints that land registrations were done even in midnights in some cases.
He instructed the officials to resolve the pending applications in Dharani immediately. He asked them to make necessary arrangements in all Mandal Tahsildar offices to dispose of the applications in the first week of March.
The Chief Minister also directed the Revenue Department to formulate terms and conditions for the disposal of pending applications by taking into consideration the suggestions made by the Dharani Committee.
Over 2.45 lakh applications are pending in Dharani portal across the state. The Chief Minister discussed with the officials the possibility of addressing the pending applications in the first phase.
Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy, Chief Adviser to Chief Minister Vemnarender Reddy, Dharani Committee Members M. Kodanda Reddy, Retired IAS Raymond Peter, Advocate Sunil, Retired Special Grade Collector B. Madhusudan, Chief Secretary Santhi Kumari, Principal Secretary to Revenue Department Naveen Mithal, Principal Secretary to CM Seshadri, CCLA officer Lacchi Reddy and other officials were present in the meeting.
The Dharani Committee also submitted a report to the Chief Minister during the meeting.
The report mentioned flaws in the ROR Act (The Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act) which came into force in 2020.
According to the committee, the comprehensive land survey was conducted in a haste in just three months time and it has created a lot of problems.
The same survey records have been taken as a parameter and hence the land record disputes increased in the state. As a result, lakhs of land ownership problems came to the light. Due to this, even small typographical errors in the names have to be rectified only by the district collector, the committee said.
The committee brought to the notice of Chief Minister Revanth that the Revenue Department has given an opportunity to correct the mistakes in Dharani data through about 35 modules, but the farmers are facing difficulties due to the lack of understanding of which modules to apply for.
The committee also said that lakhs of applications have already been rejected and it has become a burden for the farmers to pay a fee of Rs 1000 to correct each mistake/error. The sale of lands in the prohibited list is also taking place due to lack of coordination between the Registration and Stamps and Revenue department .
The meeting also discussed the “misuse” of crores of public money as the state Agriculture Department took Dharani data as a standard and deposited Rythu Bandhu benefit in the accounts.
The committee members recommended to the Chief Minister that the only option before the government is either to amend the law or enact a new ROR act to correct the errors in the Dharani portal. The Chief Minister said that a decision will be taken for a permanent solution based on the final report of the committee.