Revenue Bill in Telangana Assembly today

Hyderabad: The new Revenue Bill that would be introduced in the Assembly on Wednesday, sources claim, will be a boon for farmers and would pose a big challenge for the Revenue Department as it will make every employee highly accountable for his acts of omissions and commissions.

It is learnt that the State Revenue and Stamps and Registrations department officials were already on the edge after the government hinted at the transfer of powers to the revenue officials from the Registrations department under the new Act.

Top officials said that the new Act will facilitate addressing every problem encountered by the farmers in the registration of lands, transfer of ownership, mutation and getting Pattadar passbooks. A transparent mechanism is being introduced to address their grievances at village level. Under the new Act, the online mechanism will help the officials from the District Collector to the Secretary to Revenue and CCLA (Chief Commissioner Land Administration) to monitor every application filed by the farmers in the Revenue department at Mandal level. The top brass will be given more powers to call for explanation of the Mandal revenue officials if any dereliction in the duties was noticed.

"The field level Revenue officials will have to seek the RDO and Collector's nod before finalising the mutation and also issuing passbook in a time bound manner," officials said, adding that all the revenue officials will be given access to the Dharani website which has been developed with full of land records once the new Revenue Act comes into existence. The website will also be a game changer in streamlining the entire Revenue department which has been branded as the highest corrupt body in the state administration.

With the government having scrapped the VROs system, the structure of village level revenue administration will be known only after the Revenue Bill was introduced and passed in the Assembly.

Top sources said that all the offices of Registrations department in the farm-intensive mandals would be merged with Revenue department and the power of land registration services will be transferred to the Revenue officials from Sub Registrars. The Sub Registrar offices in the urban areas will function independently.