HYDERABAD: Stating that the Dharani portal has become a “life and death” problem for the people, with a slew of irregularities plaguing the State’s integrated land records management system, TPCC chief A Revanth Reddy on Wednesday said that there is nothing wrong in “publicly hanging” Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and imposing capital punishment, as is being done in some Middle East countries, on IT Minister KT Rama Rao on the premises of State Legislative Assembly.
Addressing a press conference here, the Congress leader alleged that an Andhraite — Sridhar Raju is one of the board of directors of a Philippines company with 99 per cent stakes in the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), which maintains the Dharani portal.
He also alleged that the State government acquired the Dharani portal software from IL&FS and gave it the responsibility of maintaining the portal. In the due course, IL&FS transformed into TerraCIS Technologies Ltd., in which a Philippines-based company Falcon SG Holding (Philippines), Inc., obtained 52 per cent shares, he said, adding that the Philippines firm owns 99 cent shares in the company.He also said that while Dharani was rolled out on October 29, 2020, Sridhar Raju was recruited by the company on November 23, 2021.
“I am not questioning who this Sridhar Raju is or what is his nexus with IT Minister KTR or Satyam Ramalinga Raju. My only concern is that all the land records of Telangana are put in the hands of private operators and that too a man from Andhra Pradesh. The public money paid towards registrations and other services is directly going to the private company’s account first, which means Sridhar Raju’s account, and the same is being transferred to the government account only if the transaction is successful. The money paid for failed or rejected transactions which amounts to around `10,000 crore continues to lie with private operators,” he claimed.
Rebutting the claims that the Dharani portal was a “brainchild” of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, Revanth said that the Odisha government launched ‘e-Dharani’ portal for land administration by buying software from the same IL&FS company.
Citing ‘Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India on Revenue Sector for the year ended March 2014 - Government of Odisha’, Revanth said that CAG found that “there was no significant advantage of e-registration system through e-Dharani application software developed by IL&FS as compared to the ORIS software developed by NIC, except that the former is a web-based centralised system.”
Revanth also questioned the objective of the State government to give maintenance of land administration to a company which has “defaulted” to State-run financial institutions. Revanth also expressed concerns over the safety of sensitive personal data and privacy as a Philippines-based company has stakes in the company that maintains the Dharani portal.