Telangana CM Defends Dharani Portal Amid Opposition Criticism

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao for a second time in two days lent his support to the Dharani portal, on Tuesday while speaking at a public meeting in Nagarkurnool. The portal has come under a major attack from the Opposition for reportedly facilitating ruling party leaders to grab land.

Rao said the Dharani portal protected agriculture properties. Because of the portal, and improved irrigation, the once-arid undivided Mahbubnagar district, from where people used to migrate to Mumbai to work for daily wages, had become the best place to do agriculture and was attracting guest workers from other areas.

At Nirmal on Sunday, the Chief Minister had said that farmer schemes like Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bhima were dependent on data from the Dharani portal. If the Congress came to power in Telangana, it would dismantle the portal and end the welfare schemes.

On Tuesday at Nagarkurnool, the Chief Minister focused on farmers, the Dharani portal and irrigation projects being taken up in undivided Mahbubnagar district. He targeted the Congress again, and asked farmers to throw the party’s leaders into the Bay of Bengal for making false statements on the Dharani portal.

The Chief Minister was speaking at a meeting after inaugurating the Nagarkurnool district collectorate, SP office and BRS office.

Recalling his stint as MP during which he had worked on the problems of Palamuru, he said the area had suffered due to the lack of drinking water, irrigation and electricity. After the state was formed, the BRS government had provided best facilities to the undivided Mahbubnagar district.

Thanks to irrigation water and free power, farmers were cultivating paddy and other crops. With the government providing irrigation water for cultivation, the land value has gone up in the district.

"The BRS government brought the Dharani portal to transfer power to farmers having property rights. During the Congress government, there were a lot of issues in getting passbooks, pahani and other records and people had to pay bribes to revenue officers. After introducing the Dharani portal, there is no dispute on property ownership," the Chief Minister said.

Stating that the Telangana topped the nation in per capita income and electricity usage in the country, the Chief Minister said that the BRS government had introduced Mission Kakatiya, Mission Bhagiratha, Rythu Bandhu, Dalit Bandhi, Kalyana Laxmi, Shaadi Mubarak and other schemes for the people.

When the BRS came to power, the government sanctioned five medical colleges for undivided Mahbubnagar district, at Mahbubnagar, Nagarkurnool, Wanaparthy, Narayanpet and Gadwal. "Why did the Congress fail to set up medical colleges when it was in power,” he asked.

In Mahabubnagar district, the number of registration offices had gone up to 88 from 15. "Farmers used to pay bribes at registration offices and revenue offices for getting their land registered. After forming Telangana state, the government made the registration process easy and an applicant can get documents registered in a single day," the Chief Minister said.

The Chief Minister asked the gathering to raise their hands on whether the government should implement Dharani portal. The audience responded by raising their hands in approval.