HYDERABAD: Fulfilling one of its key pre-poll promises, the Congress government on Wednesday introduced The Telangana Bhu Bharati (Record of Rights in Land) Bill, 2024, proposing to replace the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act, 2020.
The Bill proposes to rename Dharani portal with “RoR portal or Bhu Bharati”. In the run-up to the 2023 Assembly elections, the Congress had vowed to bring reforms in land legislation and “throw Dharani — the land records management system — into the Bay of Bengal”.
In the Bill, the state government has proposed many land reforms, learning from the shortcomings of the existing law.
The Bill has provisions to establish tribunals, appellate and revisional authority. It also has provisions for the “occupants” column, which was removed by the previous government, resulting in chaos. The Bill also has provisions for village level revenue officers and manually storing the revenue records. The Bill also empowers revenue mandal, district officers — MROs and RDOs — to address the grievances.
Tabling the Bill, Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy said: “Our leader Rahul Gandhi has promised to throw Dharani portal in Bay of Bengal in the election campaign. People believed in our promise, and voted us to power. Staying true to the vow, under the leadership of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and our MLAs, we have submerged Dharani in the Bay of Bengal, and are bringing Bhu Bharati.”
Ridiculing the previous regime, Srinivasa Reddy said that the Act the Bill proposes to replace (Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act, 2020) was drafted behind closed doors, and it affected human relations and increased the gap between family members.
The minister said that even BRS legislators have confided in him about the ordeals faced by those using Dharani portal. He noted that lakhs of Sada Bainama applications were lying unaddressed and courts had pointed out that there was no provision to address this issue.
We introduced Bhu Bharati Bill after studying legislations of 18 states: Min
Srinivasa Reddy stated that BRS MLA and former minister T Harish Rao also made recommendations by way of a seven-page representation and these recommendations were incorporated in the proposed legislation. He said that there was only one good provision in the RoR Act brought by the BRS government.
The minister said that the government has introduced the Bill after working on it till the last minute and studying similar legislations in 18 states. He stated that there was a delay in introducing the Bill as the government has taken the opinions of experts as many as 22 times.
Srinivasa Reddy asserted that the government was ready to bring any amendments to the proposed Bill in the best interest of people as “the state does not have any intentions of forcing a law on the people”.
It may be mentioned here that before introducing the Bill, the state government had put the draft in public domain for 40 days, inviting suggestions and recommendations. The Bill was prepared after wide consultations with all stakeholders.
The Speaker has scheduled discussion on the proposed bill on Thursday as requested by Opposition members.
Brief History of land rights act
The Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act, 2020 was brought into force on October 29, 2020, replacing the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act, 1971 with an objective of creating an online Record of Rights named as “Dharani”.
A deluge of complaints followed, landowners citing hardships. A significant number of landowners failed to receive the pattadar pass book-cum-title deeds, despite having one before the enforcement of the Act. There was also no Record of Rights for Abadi and non-agricultural lands in the existing law. The then BRS government introduced Dharani as a solution to all land-related problems, but there was no redressal mechanism for correcting the errors. This forced landowners to approach civil courts.