Land survey best solution to end disputes, says CM
CM asked to protect people in ‘enjoyer’ column
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Friday said that a comprehensive land survey is the best solution to end land disputes. Once the exercise is complete and each survey number tagged with geographical coordinates, all land issues will become clear.
After the survey, land will categorised as agriculture and non- agriculture. A maroon colour property card will be issued to non-agriculture land owners to carry out transactions and enlist family members. Green colour pattadar passbooks have already been issued to farmers and the names of their family members can incorporated in two months.
Green zones will be notified and maintained in towns and cities after the survey, he said. All forest land will be placed under the auto-lock till the completion of the survey.
The Chief Minister was speaking during a debate after the introduction of a slew of land reform legislation — Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Bill and the Telangana Abolition of the Posts of Village Revenue Officers Bill, Telangana Municipal Laws Amendment Bill and the Telangana Panchayat Raj Am-endment Bill 2020.
Clearing apprehensions over hiring a private agency to survey land, Rao said it would be supervised by the government. The ‘Dharani’ portal, the repository of all data, will be under the government and will have safeguards.
Rao said that through Rythu Bandhu scheme, the government had found that there were no disputes over 1,45,58,000 acres agricultural land with 57.9 lakh farmers.
Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka on Friday said that the party supported the state government for digitalisation of revenue records.
He requested Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao to protect the people whose names were in the ‘enjoyer’ column for the protection of their rights. With the deletion of the column under the new law, farmers cultivating lands adjacent to rivers seasonally and tenant farmers would be deprived of compensation in the event of crop loss, and also face difficulty in getting crop loans.
Participating in the debate on the Revenue Bill, Mallu Bhatti stressed the need for continuation of the annual joint inspection of village revenue records by revenue and irrigation officials and the ‘ Zama Bandi’ carried by the RDO.
He said that there was a lot of variation with regard to the actual extent of land and what was shown in the records. Expressing concern at the possibility of the Dharani portal being hacked, he suggested the physical records be maintained.
Referring to the difficulties of farmers tilling assigned land, the CLP alleged that the government was snatching away their land. A number of farmers in Khammam district as well as in other parts of state were worried about their rights as their lands were shown as non-agriculture lands and they were not being issued pattadar passbooks.
At this stage the Chief Minister intervened and took exception to the allegation of snatching away of assigned lands. Rao said assigned lands are taken only when required for pub
lic purposes, after paying suitable compensation.
The CLP leader asked the state government to clarify to the people the date of commencement of land survey, the method and duration. He said the government should continued with the VRO system till the completion of the survey.
He asked the government whether it will conduct
grama sabhas to educate farmers about the survey whether time would be given to them to raise objections before the details are upoaded on Dharani.
Congress MLA D. Sridhar Babu, TRS MLAs G. Balraju, Gandra Venkata Ramana Reddy, D. Nagender and BJP MLA Raja Singh participated in the debate.