Joint issue of passbooks, cheques

The State government has decided to distribute the security feature oriented Pattadar passbooks-cum-title deeds to farmers along with the cheques under the farmers insurance support scheme.

The decision comes as the printing of passbooks, which faced some technical hiccups in the initial stages, has gathered momentum. The printing of the more than 53-lakh passbooks with 17 security features, including a unique identification number of the farmers, had been entrusted to eight companies last week.

Printing, however, commenced three days ago as the firms selected for the purpose had to develop software compatible to the requirements specified by the government. Accordingly, teams of three senior officials each comprising district revenue officer, revenue divisional officer and a technical officer from the Telangana State Technology Services had been deputed to each of the printing firms.

The teams would ensure that the data with digital signatures of the tahsildars concerned in the records provided by the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration was incorporated without mistakes. The printing firms, according to sources, assured that they would print 50,000 passbooks each every day taking the total passbooks printed per day to four lakh. The passbooks with all the security features are expected to be ready in about two weeks so that their distribution can be taken up simultaneously along with the cheques, a senior official said.