Congress MLA's highlight anomalies in Dharani

Hyderabad: Senior Congress leaders and MLAs Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and D Sridhar Babu demanded the State government to address the problems faced by tens and thousands of people on account of anomalies in the Dharani portal. The Congress MLAs highlighted the woes of people, while participating in the discussion on budget in the State Assembly on Friday.

Sridhar Babu pointed out how the lands allocated to the freedom fighters and ex-servicemen were put under the prohibited list of lands. He said that the State government projected Dharani as the one-stop solution for all the ills of the revenue administration in the State. However, there were thousands of applications pending due to lack of provision for mutation.

Similarly, wrong entries of survey numbers, extent of lands in survey numbers, landowners' names etc., were a few to name posing hardships to the people, he added. On liquor policy, citing a study by the Centre, he pointed out that the study conducted showed that about 6 lakh people in the State became addicted to liquor. He stressed the need to focus on people's health rather than seeing the Excise department as a milch cow.

Adding to the same, Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said the revenue on liquor sales was around Rs 11,000 crore in the combined Andhra Pradesh. "But now, the State government wants to boost the revenue by Rs 32,000 crore," he said, urging the government not to take liquor sales as a revenue source to fill its coffers as it will have adverse effects on people's health.

However, relying to the queries raised, Minister of Legislative Affairs Vemula Prashanth Reddy and Minister for Prohibition and Excise V Srinivas Goud asked opposition members to appreciate the efforts of the government instead of finding fault with it by showing a few shortcomings.

Prashanth Reddy said that the Dharani portal contained authentic data of about 1.52 crore acres of 66 lakh farmers. It has 31 transactional modules and 11 service modules. And, more than 90 per cent of the transactions being done and performed through Dharani have no problems. However, there are a few problems with regard to lands subjected to court cases and a few others. Agreeing to the concern expressed by the members on a few issues highlighted, he said, the sub-committee appointed on Dharani has already made its recommendation to address the issues at the level of district collector itself. Besides, two more modules would be added soon to take care of the issues raised by the members, he added.

Minister Srinivas Goud said that there was no intention on the part of the State government to encourage liquor consumption and to depend on the revenues out of liquor sales. He assured the members that the issues and concerns raised by them would be addressed.