Land disputes in Telangana will be history soon, says KCR

Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Friday defended the state government's decision to get a comprehensive land survey done with a view to ending all land disputes once and for all.

Once the exercise is complete and each survey number is tagged with the geographical coordinates, all land issues would become clear.

After the survey, land-use would be categorised as agriculture and non-agriculture. Colour-coded property cards would be issued: maroon for non-agriculture land and green for pattadar passbooks, which have already been issued to farmers. The names of their family members would be 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 auto-lock till completion of the survey. 

The chief minister's intervention came during the 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 Amendment Bill 2020.

Clearing apprehensions over hiring a private agency to survey land, Chandrashekar Rao said it would be supervised by the government. The Dharani portal, the repository of all data, will be under the government and have safeguards.

The chief minister said that through the Rythu Bandhu scheme, the government found that there were no disputes over 1,45,58,000 acres agricultural land owned by 57.9 lakh farmers. Data from Rythu Bandhu scheme could be straightaway uploaded on the Dharani portal.

Another 89.47 lakh properties in local bodies had been digitised. This data would go on to the portal. Data on the remaining land would be uploaded after completion of the survey.

The chief minister said the data of farmers having recognition of forest rights would be on the portal. Regarding podu lands, he said the government was considering issuing rights to farmers for one time and then prohibiting podu cultivation.

He asked the ministers for SC and ST welfare to hold meetings with Dalit MLAs of all parties and list recommendations for protection of rights of Dalit farmers having assigned lands.

He rejected the request of CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka for continuation of the ‘enjoyer’ column in the revenue records, saying it was incorporated to protect tenant farmers from jagirdars and zamindars.

He said there were 87 revenue Acts in the state and the government had repealed only two. There is no scope for the jamabandi system now. The tribunals which will replace revenue courts will be headed by retired and in-service IAS officers. They will be abolished after resolving the 16,000-odd land disputes.

After the reply of the chief minister, the House passed the Bills which were introduced by the chief minister, industries minister K.T. Rama Rao and panchayat raj minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao.