Forty-five-year-old Venkateswara Rao has been cultivating a piece of Inam land for decades in Inamanamelur village in the Prakasam district. He has been running from pillar to post to get the title deed after he found his name included in the computerised land records of the government.
A group of farmers in Doddkuru village have been cultivating the lands on the fringes of ‘‘Thumalagunta’‘, a water body in the village, for decades. These lands have changed several hands over a period based on an agreement of sale. The present owners of such land face an uncertain future. The plight of several other farmers who cultivate ‘‘Devudu Manyam” lands (those given by kings for temple maintenance centuries back) as also different types of Poramboke land like Kunta Poramboke and Vagu Poramboke, continues without any immediate solution in sight. Those with DKT or Darakastu (DK) land also face a similar problem as they are not supposed to sell the pieces of wasteland assigned to them in villages by the Assignment Committee from time to time. Though this land has been assigned for cultivation purposes only, it has been passed on from one person to another without a title deed.
Pleas at Spandana
They have been filing petitions from the village to the district headquarters level to get their names included in the relevant computerised record, but without a positive result, complain the farmers waiting to air their grievances at a 'Spandana' meeting, the one-stop grievance reddressal forum. ‘‘We have not been given the title deed for no fault of ours,” they say outside the Prakasam Bhavan, the seat of administration here. There is also no proper record for the pieces of land owned by deceased persons without legal heirs, they allege.
Over 90% of the complaints from the petitioners during the ''Spandana'' pertain to Revenue Department-related issues, according to official sources. As many as 10,500 complaints have been received at the village secretariat level in the district for correcting the land record details in the ''Meebhoomi'' Adangal.
Reconciliation of records
Noting that land issues persisted in the district on a large scale, the administration has taken up field-level purification of land records and reconciliation of the revenue records at the grassroots level with the survey records. The resurvey of lands has been ordered besides an audit of the government lands, both ‘’objectionable Poramboke and non-objectional Porakboke’‘, by the district administration. Once the process is completed in about three months, eviction proceedings will be initiated in case of encroachment of objectionable Poramboke land, including Kunta Poramboke and Vagu Poramboke, according to District Collector A.S. Dinesh Kumar. In the case of non-objectionable Poramboke land, an Assignment Committee will be constituted to ascertain how long a particular farmer has been cultivating a said piece of land and their cultivation rights will be recognised, he tells The Hindu.
These relate to the family-level partition of land not given effect to in the relevant portal, mismatch in land extent among farmers coming under a particular survey number, name of parent continuing even after demise in records and legal heirs’ names not included and lands being cultivated on the basis of sale agreement without registration of the sale. The government will not touch those pieces of land involved in court cases as the matter is sub judice, the Collector adds.
More than 75,000 farmers in the district remained uncovered by the scheme designed to provide investment assistance for kharif crop for no fault of theirs, according to Communist Party of India (Marxist) State Committee member P. Anjaneyulu. The plethora of land issues arose following digitalisation of land records without doing the necessary ground work at the grassroots level, he opines and demands holding of Gram Sabhas at the village level to thrash out the land-related issues.
