- Every land in every village must be enlisted as per ROR Act
- Why lands of only a few are registered on Dharani website for some villages?
- Lakhs of acres vanish
- Entries should be collected in physical and electronic form existing Revenue records.
(PSN Prasad, Eminent Lawyer)
People are shocked to see the incompetent, flawed and unconstitutional design of Dharani portal. The Objective of the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is that every farmer in Telangana State should easily get the details of their lands and must be able obtain the land patta without giving any bribe. He wanted farmers to get their land documents without hassles as it was their right as land owners. Contrary to his ideas, the officials created the Dharani website in such a manner that it has become a curse to the farmers. Further, they are procrastinating without resolving the problems being faced by farmers in the State due to the defective land records on the website. Why is all this happening and no effort is being made to find a permanent solution to these issues being encountered on the Dharani website on a daily basis?
This Dharani Portal was developed under the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act 2020 which is popularly referred as Records of Rights (ROR) Act2020 on the analogy of it’s preceding Act, The Andhra Pradesh Record of Rights in Land and pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971. However, Dharani clearly appears to be violating the fundamentals of this ROR ACT 2020 itself. Under Section 3 of the Act, the record of rights of all lands in all villages in the State must be digitally stored and maintained in a centralized database in the prescribed manner. In addition, the names of all the persons who are patidars of these lands, the survey numbers and extents of each pattadar, and any other details as may be prescribed should be included under the Act. However, these are not found recorded as per the Act in the Dharani Portal.
Although the law says that Dharani must have a record of all lands in all villages irrespective of the nature of the land, the nature of ownership, etc., that basic provision in Dharani has been completely flouted. As a result, lakhs of acres of land did not make it into the Dharani website. Some of the original survey numbers did not appear in the list as well. For example, there are 63 survey numbers from 1 to 63 in Pyaranagar village in Gummadidala mandal of Sangareddy district. The total land in this village is about 700 acres and about 15 survey numbers are not at all recorded in Dharani. Only partial areas of selected individuals were recorded in other survey numbers. Of the total 700 acres, only 200 acres are registered in Dharani and details of about 500 acres are unavailable on the website in utter violation of the basic provisions of the Act. What are the officials trying to do without registering lands in every village, remains a million dollar question.
The names of all the pattadars in all villages are not registered on the Dharani portal. The survey numbers and extensions of each pattadar are also not recorded correctly and completely. If a survey number has a total of 10 acres in it, only a part of it pertaining to some selected people is found registered. Similarly the new E passbook Cum title deed issued upon the Initiative of the Chief Minister Is supposed to contain details of all the lands of a farmer and Dharani also should reflect all his land holdings in respective survey numbers. This has not happened and a large number of farmers throughout the state find only some of their land holdings are recorded in their newly issued E passbook Cum title deed and rest of their lands are not recorded either in passbook or Dharani portal. For example one Devulapalli Meenaiah of pyaranagar village has been the owner of 11 acres and 11 Guntas of land in different survey numbers. Of that he sold away 4 acres 15 Guntas to two other people in 1994. Those extents were deleted in his passbook and ROR. The purchasers had their ROR mutated and got their names entered in the ROR and passbooks were issued to the purchasers in about 1995. Thus Meenaiah was left with 6 acres 36 Guntas of land in the village.
His passbook and ROR reflected this correctly for many decades till recently.
He was issued the new E Passbook and Dharani too dawned upon the state to the great misfortune of Meenaiah.
His E passbook only records 2-38 Guntas of land and only that extent is reflected in Dharani portal.
His remaining Patta land of 3 acres 38 Guntas has disappeared mysteriously from the record.
He has sent representations to everyone that matters, beginning with MRO, RDO and Collector to The president of India and all dignitaries in the state about his troubles, but to no avail.
The people to whom he sold earlier and who were issued passbooks also did not get new passbooks. In Dharani their land has completely disappeared. They keep visiting Meenaiah regularly and go to MRO and collector who say Dharani does not allow them to rectify mistakes. In this manner people whose names or survey numbers or correct extents are not registered in the Dharani portal, passbooks or correct passbooks are not issued are unable to exercise their rights over their land.
Immediate measures needed:
Dharani portal was designed in an unscientific and illegal manner. This is a direct violation of the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act 2020. The Cabinet subcommittee which was formed to study the issues pertaining to Dharani portal, does not appear to have taken much notice of this fundamental issue. Hence, it is time that the subcommittee must immediately make efforts to comply with the provisions of Section 3 of the new Act. Because, the new Act was enacted in accordance with the 1971 Act. In such a case, all physical and electronic entries made under the 1971 Act must first be brought into the Dharani Portal. Other things to do include….
Appoint a team of experienced current or retired staff in each mandal to collect entries in physical and electronic form from the Revenue Record available in the Mandal office.
Upon completion, people are to be allowed to carry out their transactions of property under the CARD (Computer-aided Administration of Registration Department) system from the Sub-Registrar’s Offices or the MROs at Joint Sub-Registrar’s Offices as per their choices. Dharani should be linked to the CARD SYSTEM so that all transactions are reflected instantly. This mutation and issue of E passbook happens instantly. This is the sole redeeming feature of Dharani portal and it fulfills the desire for instant mutation conceived by the Chief Minister.
The CARD system has been in place for about 20 years. It has been tweaked constantly for about ten years and began smooth operations since then. There is no point in bringing in the Dharani portal disjointed from CARD.
The Dharani portal is a flawed system developed by some inexperienced young people who have no knowledge of the Revenue records system in Telangana.
A balanced system should be developed between the physical and the electronic entries till all physical entries are correctly reflected and full symmetry is achieved between physical record and electronic record by giving scope for continued tweaking of electronic record to conform with original physical record that is unassailable in law.
The fraudulent and incompetent agency which appears to have been contracted to prepare and maintain the Dharani portal due to nepotism and corruption should be removed at once. This task should be entrusted to an internationally recognised organization like TCS which has sound knowledge of public utility services and computer technology, as well as has experience and capability in development and management of such services. One must not put such a responsible task in the hands of the incompetent people and play with the lives of lakhs of innocent people. One must remember that TCS manages passports related to national security.
Violation of Property Rights under Article 300 (Box)
As per the Constitution, neither the State government nor any other authority like the Collector or MRO, has the authority to withhold details of the land title without registration on the Dharani portal. The accuracy of the details recorded is a completely different matter, but failure to record all lands is a very serious and dangerous offense as well as an insult to the great principle of ‘Rule of Law’. It violates the right to property enshrined in Article 300 of the Constitution of India.
Related
