Telangana govt introduces bill to streamline land, revenue administration, help farmers

The Telangana government on Wednesday introduced the Telangana Bhu Bharati (Record of Rights in Land) Bill, 2024 in Assembly, which aims at streamlining revenue and land administration and help small farmers.

Among others, the bill provides a 'Bhudhar' number for lands like the Aadhar card.

"Like how an individual can access his data by using the Aadhar number, it has been incorporated in the bill to give a 'Bhudhar code' to every farmer," state Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, who moved the bill, said.

Alleging that a number of problems cropped up due to the 'Dharani' land records management portal brought in through the RoR Act, 2020 during the previous BRS regime, he said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had promised during the assembly election campaign in 2023 to discard it.

As per the promise, the Congress government is introducing the Bhu Bharati legislation by "completely cleansing" Dharani portal and also the RoR Act, 2020, he said.

The new bill would protect the rights of poor farmers with small holdings who are in possession of the land but have no ownership documents.

The Bhu Bharati will address the problems concerning 18 lakh acres of lands which have remained unresolved due to the Dharani portal, official sources said.

Among several other provisions, land tribunals would be set up to look into land disputes and appeals concerning them.

BRS MLA T Harish Rao and other MLAs sought a day's time to study the bill and come up with suggestions which was accepted by Legislative Affairs Minister D Sridhar Babu and Speaker G Prasad Kumar.

Speaking during a short discussion on providing infrastructure facilities in government social welfare residential schools and government schools, Panchayat Raj, Women and Child Welfare Minister Danasari Anasuya Seethakka said the government has increased 'diet charges' (allocation of funds for providing food) for students of the welfare schools by 40 per cent.

The 'cosmetic charges' (funds allocated for haircut and others) have been increased by 200 per cent. This hike has been made after 16 years.

The government has set up a state-level task force, institution-level food safety committees to prevent food poisoning in the residential schools.

The government has also introduced a 'common diet' across the social welfare schools.

BRS MLAs T Harish Rao and Gangula Kamalakar, BJP's Rakesh Reddy and members of ruling Congress participated in the debate. The opposition members highlighted several incidents of students of the welfare schools falling sick due to alleged food poisoning, rat bites and others.