HYDERABAD : The expert committee appointed to study the implementation of the Dharani portal — the integrated revenue records management system introduced by the previous BRS government — is likely to submit its interim report with several crucial recommendations.
Sources said that these recommendations include advocating maintaining land records like Pahani manually, as well as digitally.
The previous BRS government had done away with the conventional system of recording land transactions on paper and opted for a fully online system. This led to complaints of glitches and allegations of malpractice.
In the run-up to the 2023 Assembly elections, TPCC chief A Revanth Reddy was critical about the lack of land revenue records offline. He expressed serious concerns about depending solely on technology.
After the Congress stormed to power, the government constituted a five-member expert committee with senior leader M Kodanda Reddy as its chairperson and the CCLA commissioner, retired IAS officer Raymond Peter, land rights activist M Sunil Kumar and retired special grade deputy collector B Madhusudan as its members. The panel has now completed its work and has prepared an interim report, after consulting various district collectors and officials of the Revenue, Stamps and Registrations, Agriculture and other allied departments over the past few days.
Tahsildars may get power to update records
Sources said that the committee will be recommending tahsildars to be given the authority to make changes in revenue records in case of wrong/faulty entries. Currently, the power to alter the land records rests with the district collectors and there is no proper mechanism to verify the claims of the applicants physically. The committee has taken cognizance of this ground-level reality and is likely to make recommendations, sources said.
They said that the committee is also likely to recommend the government enable a grievance mechanism for making corrections such as missing survey numbers, missing land extent, mutations, successions and other related issues.
During the meetings with the Forest and Endowments departments, the committee noticed that there was a mismatch between the actual extent of forest and endowments lands on record, and the database of the Dharani portal. The committee is likely to recommend the government to make corrections with immediate effect to ensure the alienation of valuable lands.