HYDERABAD: After the abolition of Village Revenue Officers (VRO) in a bid to clean the revenue department of rampant corruption this September, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandra Shekhar Rao (KCR) has launched the online ‘Dharani’ portal that will serve as one-stop for hassle-free transactions, be it registration or mutation, with minimum human interface.
During the inaugurating function at Moodu Chintalapally in Medchal-Malkajgiri district, KCR said the entire process of land or property registration or mutation would not take more than 20 minutes.
“This as a national trendsetter,” KCR said. “Gone are the days when people, particularly farmers, had to make the rounds of various offices for transactions, including registration and mutation, often greasing the palms of corrupt officials.”
With this exercise, about 1.45 lakh crore acres of land in the state would now have clear titles that would go a long way in cleaning up the revenue records, reduce litigation and empower the farmers and other landowners.
Telangana has during the Monsoon Session introduced the new Revenue Bill 2020 that aimed at addressing all land-related disputes on a permanent basis. It paved the way for the digitisation of revenue records and land transactions and simplified the registration process.
The Chief Minister said that the common man would now be able to transfer both agricultural and non-agricultural properties on the click-of-a-button through the Dharani portal.
He said once the success of the portal is seen by other states, they would soon adopt a similar revenue portal. “This is bound to have an impact across the country since both the Union and other state governments will now be under pressure to introduce similar measures to ensure transparency in land dealings and make the procedures simpler.”
“Even before the formal launch of the portal, during the trial run in the past three or four days, officials reported heavy traffic since thousands of people not just from the state but also from other countries were accessing Dharani as they were keen on knowing the functioning of the portal and its uniqueness,” he said.