Exercise begins to replace Dharani with Bhumata

•  CM takes decision after two-hour long meeting with top revenue officials
•  Bhumata portal to bring in more transparency
•  It aims to plug glitches in land registr ation and ownership
•  Officials explained challenges in Dharani portal

Hyderabad: The Government of Telangana has begun an exercise to introduce ‘Bhumata portal’ in place of Dharani aiming to bring more transparency and plug the glitches in the registration and ownership of land. The government has decided to constitute a special committee involving the Ministers and top Revenue officials to look into the glitches of the Dharani portal and suggest recommendations to launch a new people-friendly portal.

During the two-hour long meeting with top revenue officials, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy reviewed the performance of the Dharani portal and asked the revenue authorities to submit a detailed report within 10 days, including the data of land transactions.

Revenue Special Secretary and CCLA (Chief Commissioner of Land Administration) Commission Naveen Mittal gave a powerpoint presentation on Dharani. The Chief Minister asked the officials the utilisation of the Central funds meant for land survey, digitalisation of the land records and the release of the Title guarantees. The Revenue officials have also been asked to furnish the details of the prohibited lands and encroachments. The Chief Minister expressed anger at the alleged irregularities that took place in the Dharani portal during the registration of agriculture and non-farm land. The CM also instructed the Revenue department to hold meetings at Mandal Revenue offices every month to address the grievances of the people.

The officials also explained the challenges in Dharani which includes no Appellate Authority for rejected applications, non- refund of stamp duty if the slot is cancelled, non-availability of Pahani to citizens, lack of clarity in the scope of officers under the new Record of Rights (RoR) Act and mistakes in the prohibited list.

The officials suggested some measures which include application tracking system, time limit for grievance resolution , introduction of Appellate authority for rejected applications and user-friendly portal for citizens and officers and address the land issues at the village level. The display of land survey numbers with associated issues should be exhibited at the village level.