400 landlords not to get Rythu Bandhu sops

​Hyderabad: The recently-launched Rythu Bandhu scheme has uncovered the existence of nearly 400 ‘landlords’ (big farmers) who owned large swathes of land in excess of the limit prescribed by Land Ceiling Act -1973 in many parts of Telangana state.

Alarmed over the findings, the state government has declared all these farmers ineligible for receiving subsidy at the rate of Rs 4,000 per acre under Rythu Bandhu Scheme. The landlords under cover have possessed land above the Land Ceiling Act under which each individual could own land up to 52 acres only in respect of fallow land (without irrigation facility).

Most of them are found in Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar, Ranga Reddy, Karimnagar and Warangal districts. It was also found that a farmer in Warangal district registered a whopping 854 acres of land in his name. Most of landlords are either relatives of ruling party leaders or the main opposition Congress. 

The family members of the leaders who fought against Nizam dynasty during the Razakar movement were also among the farmers who owned huge tracts of land. However, the officials did not divulge the details of the names of individual big farmers and the total lands registered in their names.

The officials said that the State Revenue and Agriculture department which conducted land purification programme to verify the ownership of the lands for the distribution of new pattadar passbooks found many big farmers registered land in their names, but mutation was still pending. Taking advantage of the loopholes in the Revenue department which is the authority to do mutations, farmers violated the Land Ceiling Act and possessed huge acres of land.

As per the official records, 62 per cent of farmers in Telangana possessed less than 2.5 acres of land, 24 per cent own the land between 2.5 acres and 5 acres, 11 per cent peasants own between 5 acres and 10 acres, less than 3 per cent own between 10 acres and 25 acres and 0.88 per cent of the farmers own more than 25 acres of land. 

The statistics did not reveal the total number of farmers who owned land more than 52 acres. The government is expected to take a decision on resumption of excess land from the big farmers sooner than later. As per the Ceiling Act, the big farmers will have to surrender the excess lands to the government. If not, the government is authorised to cancel the ownership.