Rules for new Record of Rights Act will be framed in three months: Revenue Minister

Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy. File.

Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy has announced that the State Government is committed to prepare rules for the Telangana Bhu Bharati (Record of Rights) Act, 2024, within three months making the Act operational across the State.

The Minister who piloted the Bill in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday charged the previous BRS Government for not preparing rules more than three years after enactment of Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 2020 and wondered how the BRS Government claimed the Act to be the best in the country. The Government had therefore repealed the previous Act and sought to replace it with an effective legislation safeguarding the rights of landowners in a fool proof manner.

Mr. Srinivas Reddy who gave a detailed explanation about the salient features in the new legislation said the Government had decided to collect details of the Government lands prior to 2014 available with the Sub Registrars for super imposing it with the existing data to bring out the magnitude of encroachments during the previous regime. “Vast tracts of lands were encroached ever since the enactment of the lopsided Act and introduction of Dharani portal. We will resume the encroached lands without leaving a single square yard,” he asserted adding a provision had been made to enable the CCLA to file revision petitions wherever necessary to protect the Government lands.

Recalling that the previous Government had done away with revenue administration at the village level, he said the Congress Government had decided to restore the system appointing one employee each to look after revenue affairs in all the 10,956 revenue villages across the State. “The entire revenue administration system at village level has been scrapped with a single stroke of pen,” he said.

This apart, major features like enjoyment column in the land deeds had been removed by the previous Government. “Any one checking for details of his lands will not be able to find them because of the lopsided Act as well as the Dharani portal,” he said. The previous Government which introduced Dharani portal with three modules extending them to 33 in due course making it difficult to farmers to find the exact source where they could represent their issues.

“The maintenance of the portal has been given to a foreign firm. The Government however handed over the maintenance of the portal to central government agency NIC through a deal which involve lower costs,” he said.

He said that the Government had decided to restore the Jama Bandi, the annual verification and review of land transactions by officials, which the previous Government had done away. This apart, provisions had been incorporated providing redressal mechanism at different levels from MRO to district collectors besides constituting Land Tribunals to ensure faster disposal of cases.

Explaining about the elaborate exercise conducted to bring out the new legislation, he said the Government had examined land legislations operational in 18 States for understanding the best practices. Thereafter, the draft of the bill was kept in the public domain while the committee constituted on land issues went to grass root levels to seek stakeholders views.

The previous Act was prepared by two individuals sitting behind closed doors causing severe hardships to landowners, small and marginal farmers in particular, he said without naming them. The State Government however continued consultations till Tuesday evening before finalising the final Act so that all the important suggestions were incorporated in the Act. He expressed concern over 18.26 lakh acres being put in the prohibited list and said the Government had decided to resolve issues pertaining to genuine landowners which were not in litigation.