The owners of agriculture lands located in the extended Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits are under constant threat of losing ownership rights, thanks to the manipulations of revenue officials. These officials have not maintained proper records pertaining to ownership and have also been manipulating the records to benefit land grabbers. The recent probe into the alleged irregularities committed by Serilingampally tahsildar G. Subba Rao, has highlighted the various methods employed by corrupt officials and land grabbers to encroach on not only government land, but private land too.
The inquiry report has recommended that the government bring these lands under the purview of the town survey department that confers the right of ownership in urban areas. Entry into town survey records is hassle free and a one-time affair. Updating entries in the town survey takes place only in the event of change of ownership.
The inquiry revealed that the problem is more in the mandals of Serilingampally, Balanagar, Malkajgiri, and Uppal, which were merged into the GHMC. Rajendranagar, Saroor-nagar and Hayatnagar, which partially fall in the extended urban agglomeration, are also seeing manipulations in land records.
As per the AP Rights Pattadar Passbook Act, revenue officials must visit agriculture land every year and record details in almost 30 columns of pahanis, pertaining to the ownership, transfer of it, if any, mode of transfer, extent of land, irrigation source, crops grown and yield. “Many lands have been converted for non-agricultural purposes but the ownership is still conferred through issue of the pattadar passbooks and entry into 1B register and pahanis,” Ranga Reddy collector V. Seshadri told this newspaper. In some cases, the officials do not enter the details of a new owner in the event of change of ownership, though they issue the pattadar passbook. In other cases, the officials insert names of the land grabbers in fraudulent ways.