Hyderabad: Some officials and staff are not carrying original land documents with them for the ongoing survey to purify land records and are relying on details provided by landowners, defeating the very purpose of the exercise.
No cross verification is being done to check whether the details provided by owners match with those in the original records.
The original land records, drawn up in the Nizam era, are categorised as ‘sethwari’, ‘kaasra pahani’ and ‘chesa’ and are available with the revenue department.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao directed revenue officials and staff to carry these original land documents with them during survey so that the details provided by landowners under Section 1(B) of Record of Rights in Lands and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971 could be cross checked.
The provision certifies the extent of land owned according to survey number.
However, there is mismatch between extent of land in survey numbers, when original land records and RoR are compared.
For this reason, the CM specifically issued instructions not to go only by the RoR but also carry original land records for survey for cross verification and rectify the errors if any.
There are complaints that officials and staff are not following these directions and simply going by the RoR to complete the survey quickly and meet the deadlines.
Deputy Chief Minister and revenue minister Mohd Mahmood Ali said, “Negligent officials and staff will have to face stringent action. We are sending special teams to take up sample surveys where survey has been completed to detect whether the survey was done in a proper manner or not. If any discrepancies are found between sample survey and original survey, officials and staff concerned will be held responsible.”
The government has even deployed intelligence teams to villages to observe the pattern of land survey and get feedback from villagers and report to the government.
