Amaravati: Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday set an ambitious December 2027 deadline for authorities to complete the comprehensive land resurvey across Andhra Pradesh and ordered the revenue authorities to submit monthly progress reports, signalling a major overhaul of the state’s land administration system.

In a significant administrative shift, he directed that the powers to resolve land disputes be transferred from joint collectors to revenue divisional officers (RDOs) to speed up disposals.

At a review with Revenue Minister Ani Satya Prasad, special chief secretary (Revenue) G Sai Prasad and senior CCLA officials at the Secretariat, the Chief Minister said that revenue services must become simple, transparent, real-time, and harassment-free. He instructed that the auto-mutation system be made fully real-time, including for pattadar passbooks, ensuring that mutation occurs immediately after registration without forcing landowners to make repeated visits to revenue offices.

Officials briefed the Chief Minister that 1,97,915 citizen complaints had been received through PGRS on issues related to mutation and pattadar passbooks. Additionally, there were 1,00,835 applications regarding land classification disputes, 1,00,295 complaints pertaining to land reduction after resurvey, and 2,40,479 grievances relating to joint land parcel maps.

The officials informed the Chief Minister that resurvey work had been completed in 6,693 villages, while work in 10,123 villages was yet to be covered. Naidu insisted that the process be finished within the revised 2027 deadline and emphasised swift disposal of joint LPM disputes. He said that online land databases would make issuance of encumbrance certificates easier and directed fast-tracking of applications seeking removal from the 22A prohibited list.

The Chief Minister stressed caution in handling 22A list freehold cases and said a tamper-proof system, potentially blockchain-based, must be adopted for document integrity. He ordered expedited removal of dotted lands from the 22A list and instructed authorities to delete from the 22A list the sale deeds of barren lands executed before 1954, and to remove assigned lands pledged with primary cooperative societies up to 1999.

Naidu said the Registration and Stamps Department must achieve the Rs. 10,169 crore revenue target and align land values with realistic market rates. He approved the Ministerial Committee’s recommendation to regularise assigned lands within municipal limits using 50 per cent of base value for plots under 250 square yards and to regularise aquaculture-used assigned lands at sub-registrar value.

The Chief Minister directed immediate issuance of caste certificates to students completing 10th class and ordered that income certificates be issued using RTGS-linked data.

Officials reported that from June 15 last year to December 1 this year, the department received 5,28,217 grievances, of which 4,55,189 (86 per cent) had been resolved. Around 73,000 cases remained under process, with dissatisfied petitions being reopened. Since June 2024, 6,846 applications had been filed seeking removal from the 22A list, only lands belonging to ex-servicemen, political victims, freedom-fighters, and pre-1954 assignees were eligible for deletion.