Hyderabad: The field trips of Telangana government committee tasked with studying the Dharani portal and resolving the application backlog have begun. The exercise began on Wednesday, March 11, in parts of the Nalgonda district.
The committee has also started interacting with tahsildars who have been tasked with preparing reports regarding pending applications, including the type of applications received, the reasons for their pendency, and related issues.
M Kodanda Reddy, a committee member, and M Sunil Kumar, an expert in land laws, are visiting Dharani centers and talking with farmers about the issues they have been facing because of the Dharani portal.
The field visits coincide with the ongoing government initiative to eliminate the backlog of applications, which was started on March 1. The goal of the field visits is to assess the situation on the ground and provide the government with actionable recommendations.
Sunil Kumar has advocated for a comprehensive overhaul of Dharani to reduce inconvenience to landowners, particularly farmers, as well as a complete modification in the record of rights laws (the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks laws, 2020) to make it more farmer-friendly. “There are numerous other concerns that require attention, so we must improve the recommendations in our study,” he said.
Since the commencement of the drive, officials at all levels have cleared about one lakh out of 2.45 lakh pending applications. It is stated that the majority of these applications have to do with Sada Bainamas or land sales on plain paper.
There are also reportedly more applications for land extent discrepancies and revisions in Pattadar passbooks. The largest number of applications received since the Dharani portal’s inception is reportedly due to the lack of a grievance redressal system and the centralisation of authority for fixing mistakes made by district collectors and CCLAs.
