In a major push towards reforms in the Revenue Department, the State government has decided to do away with the posts of Village Revenue Officers and Village Revenue Assistants and enact a new legislation for maintenance of Record of Rights relating to lands in electronic form in the Telangana Land Records Management System for ensuring hassle free revenue administration in the larger public interest.
The government has introduced four Bills in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday – The Telangana Abolition of the Posts of VROs Bill, 2020, The Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Bill, 2020, The Telangana Municipal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020, and The Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
Options for VROs
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao however asserted that the existing VROs would be accommodated in the posts of same cadre in different departments and options would be given to them accordingly.
The government had decided to take steps to absorb the VRs as scale employees in different departments as it is committed to protect their job security and had taken employees into confidence before bringing forth the legislations. The absorption of the VRAs as scale employees is likely to impose an additional burden of ₹560 crore on the State, but the government is firm that that interest of the VRAs, 90% of whom are from under-privileged sections, are protected.
“This is a historic occasion. Passage of the Bills will eliminate the problems faced by the people, farmers and poorer sections in particular, in registering their lands,” he said.
Discretionary powers
The Bills, according to the Chief Minister, envisage removal of discretionary powers vested with the officials at different levels and ensuring a transparent and corruption-free land dealings.
Tahsildars
The Chief Minister gave a detailed explanation about the government’s intentions behind the introduction of the new Bills claiming that absence of IT intervention in the land related issues had further complicated the situation at the grass root level. He explained that tahsildars would continue to function but they would not have powers like in the past.
“There are separate courts at the level of tahsildar, RDO and Joint Collector. The same officials will pass the orders and they will also deal with the cases relating to them. There is a mismatch in the process,” he said. There are an estimated 16,135 cases pending with the revenue courts at different levels.
No revenue courts
The enactment of the legislations would ensure that all the revenue courts would be abolished and people need to approach civil courts for resolution of disputes. The government has resolved to constitute 16 fast track tribunals giving them specific time frame to dispose of the cases and discussions are on with the Law Department officials in this regard.
The government has decided to utilise the powers conferred under Section 7 of the Registration Act, 1908, empowering it to appoint officials, non-officials to the key posts in the department.
Accordingly, the MROs would forthwith be made joint sub registrars and would be asked to deal with agricultural lands. Registrations pertaining to the non-agricultural lands would be dealt with by the sub registrars in 141 offices spread across the State.
Complaints
The reform is mandated as the complaints on corruption in the land related issues are on the rise while farmers developed a sort of animosity with the Revenue officials. Though there were efforts made to put in place land reforms from time to time, the previous governments could not evolve a permanent solution to the problem thereby leading to some violent incidents like people killing their own relatives for the sake of lands.