The Dharani portal, the much-hyped one-stop solution for land-related transactions in Telangana, is apparently headed towards a major revamp so that it is user-friendly and ensures seamless transactions.
The portal, which was launched in 2020, has drawn flak right from its inception from both political parties and land owners. The Congress, which was then in the Opposition, claimed that land was being alienated in favour of leaders of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in the name of Dharani at the expense of poor landowners, who were made to run from pillar to post to get their problems resolved. Complaints about the portal include patta land being included in the prohibited list, mismatches between the extent of land in records and the actual field dimensions, and the absence of a provision for registering lands in the name of multiple owners,
On becoming Chief Minister, A. Revanth Reddy appointed a high-level committee to evolve guidelines for the permanent resolution of long-pending land disputes. The committee has been mandated to suggest measures to permanently resolve the complaints that have been raised by landowners since the inception of Dharani.
The five-member committee has started holding discussions with all the stakeholders to understand the functioning of the portal. It has stumbled upon many lapses. It believes that the portal needs major changes on the technical, administrative, and legal sides.
The committee has assessed the errors that crop up while transitioning from manual records to the digital mode. The maintenance of digital records is also said to have problems, with questions being raised on whether they are really tamper-proof.
During their interactions with stakeholders, the committee found that less than 50% of the digitised land records are error-free unlike the claims of the previous government that the issues pertaining to almost 95% of land were rectified before digitisation.
As a result, the public has been facing numerous problems in selling/buying land as sufficient modules for different transactions have not been incorporated into the portal. “Major changes are required in the software as well as in the administration of the portal. For this, there is a likely need for change in the law,” said Sunil Kumar, a land laws expert who is part of the committee.
The system has been designed in such a manner that it allows just one transaction at a time. Users who face multiple problems related to their land are not able to access the portal to have their grievances redressed. For instance, several landowners have complained that their lands have been placed in the prohibited list. At the same time, they have complained about the mismatch in the extent of the land in records and in actual field dimensions. The system allows the user to make an application for removal of the land from the prohibited list or one pertaining to the extent of land, but not both at the same time. In case users apply for rectification of both these issues at the same time, their application gets rejected. “Rejected applications — around 8 lakh, which is nearly half the total of 16 lakh applications that have been received /so far — reflects the gravity of the situation,” said Mr. Kumar.
He also said that the Telangana government has made it mandatory to pay ₹1,200 per application, which is not the case in several other States which introduced similar systems. “No steps have been taken to create awareness among the people about the modules that have been put in place and the specific problems that will be addressed through the portal,” he said.
The portal has its problems on the departments front too. The Revenue Department, in particular, has been overstrained since the launch of Dharani as just 34 officers, one for each district, have been authorised to operate the portal. The officers do not have enough ground staff to assist them by way of field visits for verification of the claims by the landowners. This is despite the fact that they have received lakhs of applications. The Department has also locked horns with the Forest Department, which claims that a major extent of forest land finds no mention in Dharani. It reportedly has 66 lakh acres under its purview, but the portal shows that just over 40 lakh acres are owned by it.
In this context, concrete measures for rectifying lapses and making the portal more user-friendly are urgently required.
