Hyderabad: The special committee put up by the Telangana government tasked with evaluating the Dharani portal’s operations and identifying its shortcomings has proposed replacing it with a new Record of Rights (RoR) portal named Bhumatha.
The committee has recommended that the management of the new Bhumata portal should be entrusted to a government agency, in contrast to the Dharani portal which was managed by a private firm under the previous BRS government.
This recommendation is part of the committee’s report submitted to the state government, which outlines 32 measures to improve land administration in Telangana across short-term, medium-term and long-term timeframes.
Specifically, the committee suggested that the Bhumata portal be overseen by one of the following government entities: the Centre for Good Governance (CGG), the National Informatics Centre (NIC), or Telangana Online (TG Online).
Additionally, a technical team of experts in law, land tenure, revenue, and software should be established to oversee and guide the implementation of the portal.
This recommendation is part of a broader set of short-term measures put forward by the committee, which is led by senior Congress leader M Kodanda Reddy and includes members such as retired bureaucrat Raymond Peter, land laws specialist M. Sunil Kumar, and retired special grade collector B. Madhusudan Reddy.
The Chief Commissioner of Land Administration, Navin Mittal, serves as the committee’s member-convenor.
The committee’s report, which involved consultations with farmers and revenue officials, outlines 32 recommendations aimed at enhancing land administration in the state, focusing on both immediate and long-term improvements.
The committee has recommended that the government enact a new Record of Rights Act to replace the existing Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 2020 introduced by the previous BRS government.
The previous Act had several shortcomings, so a new law is needed to create and maintain accurate land records, the committee said.
Additionally, the committee suggested establishing a Land Governance Innovations and Legal Support Cell to assist the government in implementing land governance reforms.
In the medium-term, the committee recommends allowing manual submission of grievance applications, which can later be hosted online with reduced or waived application fees.
They also propose a new program to receive land grievance petitions at the village level itself, rather than requiring farmers to travel to mandal or district offices every time.
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