LAW OF THE LAND, CHANGED
Ahead of enacting new law, TS stops land registrations, tahsildars take over records from village revenue officers; people stage protests against freeze on registration
In a sudden move towards enacting the New Revenue Act to revamp the revenue system, the state government on Monday declared a holiday for land registrations from Tuesday till further orders.
Village revenue officers (VROs) were asked to hand over land records to the tahsildars concerned before 3 pm on Monday.
These orders make it clear that the government has decided to abolish the VRO system.
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, while addressing a meeting of the TRS Legislature Party, is said to have disclosed that the New Revenue Act will be introduced in the Assembly on Thursday.
Stating that the objective of bringing the new Act was to provide quality, transparent and corruption-free land-related services to citizens including registration of property documents, Mr Rao asked the MLAs and ministers to explain its objective to the people and weed out misconceptions.
The Chief Minister is said to have told the ministers and MLAs to celebrate the new law by firing crackers in villages across the state when the Bill is introduced in the Assembly.
As far as the order of declaring the holiday of registrations concerned, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar in the government order said the orders had been issued under the Registration Act, 1908.
Accordingly, the authorities stopped booking slots for registrations and sale of revenue stamps. Only those who had booked slots on Monday, were allowed to get their lands and other properties registered as schedule.
Earlier in the day the Chief Secretary directed district collectors to instruct VROs to hand over all the records including original, photostat copies, online copies, printed and handwritten copies available with them, to the tahsildars.
The process was to be completed by 3 pm and the Chief Secretary asked collecters to send a compliance report to the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA) by 5.30 pm.
Until further orders, the records will be maintained at mandal level under the personal custody of the Tahsildars.
Meanwhile sources in the government disclosed that around 60 per cent of revenue records were handed over to tahsildars by the VROs by the evening and the remaining will be completed late in the night.
Earlier, people who visited sub-registrar offices across the state for land registrations were shocked by the decision and staged protests saying it was taken without giving prior notice.
Registration of will deeds, administration of marriages and franking services will continue.