Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president K. Chandrasekhar Rao has come down heavily on the detractors of ‘Dharani’, the online integrated land records management system, stating that they plan to make landholding farmers run pillar to post for their land transactions by paying bribe at different levels.
“Some fools are repeatedly saying that they will dump the Dharani system in the Bay of Bengal after their party is voted to power. It’s nothing but dumping farmers in the ocean and throwing them to the mercy of individuals in the revenue system who had fleeced them for decades even for getting done a small work related to land records,” he said at Nagarkurnool on Tuesday.
Addressing a public meeting in the name ‘ pragathi nivedana sabha’ after participating in a few development programmes there, the Chief Minister disclosed that it was because of Dharani that farmers were getting the benefit of Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bima, value of paddy sale and others directly credited into their bank accounts without the involvement any individual or middlemen.
“But for Dharani the situation would have been unimaginable, particularly in the backdrop of the sharp rise in land value even in remote areas as land sharks in different forms would have made the life of landholders hell with an eye on money. The problem of fiddling with land records would have been unending,” he explained.
It was for the farming community of the State to decide whether they wanted Dharani and continue to get seamless benefits from it or go back to the days when even a VRO had the facility to meddle with the land records at will. Even the highest authority in the land administration department or even the Chief Minister would not meddle with records as it could be done only with the biometric authentication of the landholder concerned, the Chief Minister said.
He also asked those who attended the public meeting whether they wanted Dharani or not and got a positive response. He suggested that they discuss the issue in villages and come to a conclusion. “Don’t let go of the situation by falling prey to the misinformation campaign of the opposition parties and dump them in the Bay of Bengal for trying to push them into the past”, Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao asked the people.
The Chief Minister announced that 4,000 beneficiaries in each constituency would be covered under the ‘Gruhalakshmi’ scheme of ₹3 lakh financial assistance for constructing houses on their own sites. He also vowed to complete the Palamuru-Rangareddy irrigation project at any cost, in spite of the hurdles being created by some betrayers of Telangana by joining hands with outsiders.
“People of Telangana are my ‘balagam’ (near and dear ones) and it’s with their support alone that I am moving ahead,” he said.
