HYDERABAD: Dharani portal, billed as a reform brought forth by the KCR administration in land registrations, is only adding to the cup of woes of the land owners. Farmers of Bommaraspet village in Shameerpet mandal of Medchal Malkajgiri district on Monday staged a protest at the district collectorate complex alleging that with the backing of a minister, land sharks are trying to gobble up their lands using technical issues in the Revenue Department and Dharani portal.
They have also alleged that the agricultural land that is being encroached upon is about 1,000 acres, worth more than Rs 5,000 crore. Farmers say land sharks took advantage of the Dharani portal showing the land in question as “Survey no/sub-division is marked prohibited for any transaction”. They have also alleged that a major conspiracy was being hatched to drive out all villagers from Bommaraspet.
‘Cultivating lands for the last 40 years’
The farmers claim that they have been cultivating the land for over 40 years. They even have Pattadar passbooks issued by the Telangana government and state that agriculture investment support money is being credited to their accounts based on the ownership of land holdings.
They are sore over the district administration not filing an appeal on the High Court’s interim orders in favour of the encroachers which they managed by presenting “forged” documents. Speaking to the media, the protesting farmers said that their ancestors or previous land owners had purchased the land in question in 1964 from a man named Duggirala Balakrishna.
However, some of the land records continued to be under his name until the recent past. The farmers alleged that taking this as an advantage, Balakrishna’s heirs and others are trying to grab their lands. “We have requested the Collector to remove our lands from the prohibition list. He suggested to us to appeal through the Dharani portal, but nothing is happening,” said Koneru Krishna, one of the protesting farmers.