HYDERABAD: The Dharani committee has suggested that the state govt get a third-party audit of Dharani portal to check if any unauthorised changes were made to it since its launch in Sept 2020. There were allegations that many unauthorised changes were made in the portal by changing the names of property owners, survey numbers, land extent, putting some survey numbers in the prohibited property list, wrong entries, etc.
It also said the maintenance of the Dharani portal should be given to govt agencies such as National Informatics Centre (NIC), Centre for Good Governance (CGG), or TSOnline, as the govt data should be protected and address privacy concerns. As of now, the Dharani portal is being managed by a private agency.
These were among 32 measures, including short-term, mid-term and long-term, suggested to the govt. The state govt had a few months ago constituted a committee with Rythu Commission chairman M Kodanada Reddy, land experts M Sunil Kumar, Madhusudhan, former bureaucrat Raymond Peter and others.
The Congress govt has already decided to rename Dharani as Bhumatha portal, which would be done soon, and decided to bring in a new Right of Records (RoR) Act, 2024 in place of the existing RoR Act, 2020, by brining in amendments and including some new provisions.
The committee suggested creating a land governance innovation cell and legal support cell for assisting the govt in undertaking land governance reforms. “Apart from disposing of pending Dharani applications, the govt should launch a new programme at the village level to receive land grievance petitions like revenue sadassulu. Correct and update the prohibited properties list. Delete pre-1958 assigned land from the prohibited property list,” the committee said.
Since there was no officer or supporting revenue department at the village level after the abolition of village revenue officers (VROs) and village revenue assistants (VRAs), the committee felt a responsible person should be there to look after land administration at the village. It also proposed a unique community paralegal programme in the rural development department, which would help farmers in getting their land problems resolved.
“Taking services of youth, undertake physical verification of land parcels, verification of land records, and identification of land problems. The identified land problems may be resolved by organising village revenue courts. Paralegals and community surveyors working in DRDAs (district rural development agencies) may be deputed to work in these cells,” the committee said.
