HYDERABAD: Many Adivasi as well as small and marginal farmers across the State have been deferring the process of mutation of the land they inherited as the process has become a costly affair after the enforcement of the Integrated Land Records Management System - Dharani portal.
Needless to say, this is impeding the marginal farmers from availing of the input subsidy - Rythu Bandhu - given by the State government.
Although land succession means the transfer of record from parent to legal heirs, the State government is charging Rs 2,750 to Rs 3,000 per acre for the online window, which is non-refundable. For instance, if a farmer owns 5 acres of land at the time of his death, his heirs will have to pay at least Rs 13,750 towards the challan generated in the online portal.
“I have come across many Adivasis in the Adilabad district who are unable to pay the fees required for land mutation under the Land Succession option in the Dharani portal and thereby deferred the procedure. Due to this, the farmers couldn’t obtain loans or other benefits like input subsidy (Rythu Bandhu),” said Harsha, an activist with Kisan Mitra, explaining his harrowing experience in troubleshooting ground-level issues. He added that families of farmers who died by suicide suffer similarly.
Prior to Dharani, the State government had not collected any fees for land succession. All the applicants had to do was to apply for mutation in the tahsildar office by attaching a death certificate, and surrendering the passbook of the land in question.
“Land mutation used to be free of cost earlier. Now, the State government is charging for corrections even for the mistakes made by Collectors,” said Vuppala Balaraju, a retired tahsildar. He opined that such a facility ideally should be free of cost, and the government shouldn’t see it as an income-generating opportunity.