Telangana: Officials seek bribes to correct errors in patta

Hyderabad: The drive to purify land records has sparked largescale corruption in the revenue  department. Over nine lakh errors were identified even after the purification of land records, exposing the shoddy work done by some revenue staff. Land owners are running around revenue offices to get corrections done. A few revenue staff are exploiting this situation and demanding up to Rs 10,000 as bribes to make the corrections.

The government received complaints against these staff and an internal inquiry is going on. Complaints were also received against agriculture extension officers for demanding bribes to disburse Rythu Bandhu cheques to land owners. Official sources revealed that the government is likely to axe 225 village revenue officers and agriculture extension officers for irregularities. The complaints are said to be more in Palamur, Warangal and Nalgonda districts.

The highest number of errors in the pattadar passbooks was regarding wrong entry of land ownership at 2,13,967. This was followed by multiple entry of land holdings at 1,48,669. The third highest was regarding wrong entry of Aadhaar numbers at 1,29,249. There were 99,829 complaints of survey numbers gone missing. Errors were committed in the names of pattadars in 75,153 instances. Caste has been wrongly entered in 60,806 cases and gender in 62,000.

In another 38,879 cases, the names of spouses were wrongly entered. Sources the number of errors could be over 15 lakh when reverification is complete. All the MRO offices are witnessing hea-vy rush of affected owners seeking  corrections. The staff is just receiving applications and sending land-owners back saying that it will take time to do corrections. In some instances, revenue staff is demanding bribes to make the corrections. Since the issue involves land which is valuable, few owners are coming forward to  offer bribes while few are strongly objecting and complaining to higher ups.