HYDERABAD: A massive land survey will be undertaken in the State shortly to prepare a survey-number-wise Geographic Coordinate (GC) Map. The exercise aims to end land-related disputes permanently.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced this in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, while moving the Telangana Abolition of the Posts of Village Revenue Officers Bill, 2020 and Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 2020 Bill.
The Geographic Coordinate Map is based on the longitude and latitude of the location, which cannot be changed by anyone. "These digitised maps will end land encroachments," he said.
Village, mandal, district and State-wise digital maps would be made available soon. Rao said that the new Bills were intended to reduce human-interface so that people need not visit government offices frequently.
The Chief Minister explained that the Dharani portal too would be launched soon. The portal would have a list of agricultural and non-agricultural lands. The details of lands, debts on lands and other details would be available on the portal. "So that people need not apply for encumbrance certificate (EC). The government land will be auto-locked and cannot be registered by anyone," Rao said.
Hitherto Tahsildars and RDOs had discretionary powers, the CM said, adding that Revenue courts too used to function under Tahsildars/RDOs/Joint Collectors. They would take policy decisions and also issue judgements on land disputes. This wasn’t the right way to go about things.
"All three types of Revenue Courts will be abolished and 16 Fast Track Tribunals will be set up to resolve around 16,137 pending land-related cases," the Chief Minister announced. Each Tribunal would deal with around 1,000 cases. These cases would be settled by Tribunals in the next 90 days.
The Chief Minister said Tahsildars would also function as joint registrars. The existing 141 sub-registrars of the Registration Department would register non-agricultural lands and Tahsildars agricultural lands. The mutation of records would be done within half-an-hour of the land being registered. Mutations are currently done by Revenue, Municipal and Panchayat Raj departments. The government also introduced the Telangana Municipal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2020. These were moved by Ministers KT Rama Rao and Errabelli Dayakar Rao respectively.
