Telangana Govt. working on restoring revenue administration at village level  

VRO, VRA system scrapped by the BRS Government leading to spurt in land issues  

The State government is actively working out modalities for restoring revenue administration at the village level.

The development follows the absence of Revenue department personnel like Village Revenue Officers and Village Revenue Assistants at the grassroots to carry out departmental duties. The previous BRS government scrapped the VRO and VRA system after the introduction of the Dharani portal to weed out manual intervention in revenue affairs that leading to corruption.

The personnel working in the posts were accommodated in different departments subsequently, but the decision resulted in a spurt in land-related grievances. Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy said, at a recent meeting of the revenue services associations, that the government was taking steps to ensure that a Revenue department official was present in all the major gram panchayats or cluster of villages to oversee the functioning of the department.

The Minister asserted that a special legal cell would be set up in the Revenue Secretary’s office to give recommendations for protecting government lands duly considering legal aspects involved.

Interestingly, the committee headed by senior Congress leader M. Kodanda Reddy to study the functioning of the Dharani portal and suggest necessary changes in the portal also recommended setting up land support levels at the tahsil offices to help farmers get their land grievances resolved. The panel, after an elaborate study of the existing revenue mechanism at the grassroots level, suggested that paralegals and community surveyors working in the DRDAs could be deputed to work in these land support cells.

The government could enlist the support of village youth for undertaking physical verification of lands, verification of land records and identification of problems. This would facilitate issue of temporary Bhudar cards, on the lines of Aadhaar card, to farmers based on the present record of rights and verification of other land records.

The Minister’s assertion comes at a time when the government is grappling with mounting complaints of land-related issues since Dharani portal was introduced. The presence of Revenue administration at the village level would ensure that a majority of grievances are redressed on time, avoiding huge costs to farmers, officials said.

Published - September 23, 2024 09:10 am IST