Telangana to Survey Farm Land After 96 Years

Hyderabad: The state government will undertake a comprehensive re-survey of agricultural land across the state from July to resolve long-pending land disputes and create a dispute-free land administration system. The exercise would be taken up in phases. This will be the first such survey after the 1930s in the Nizam era.

Telangana has 10,954 revenue villages and, in the first phase, the re-survey will be conducted in 2,240 villages selected from 32 districts, excluding Hyderabad, at the rate of 70 villages per district.

Announcing the decision after a teleconference with revenue officials on Friday, revenue minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy said the government's objective was to provide clear boundaries for every inch of land, establish ownership for every survey number and ensure confidence among farmers.

The minister pointed out that in many parts of the state, land records dating back to the Nizam era of 1936 continued as the primary basis for ownership and boundary identification. Over the decades, land fragmentation, proliferation of subdivisions, rapid urbanisation and changes in administrative boundaries have created widespread confusion over original land limits. The re-survey exercise is intended to provide a permanent solution to these issues.

The government has decided to abandon traditional surveying methods involving chains, rods, cross-staffs and measuring tapes. Instead, the exercise will be carried out using advanced technologies such as Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS), Rovers, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and QGIS software. The minister said 411 Rover devices had already been procured and another 400 would be purchased shortly to strengthen the survey infrastructure.

Under the new system, every survey number will be assigned a Bhudhaar number, and every land parcel will receive a Bhudhaar card, similar to the Aadhaar identification system. Information collected through DGPS technology will be integrated into QGIS software and uploaded to the Bhu Bharati portal.

The minister noted that while Telangana had around 40 lakh survey numbers in 1948, the number has now increased to 2.29 crore due to successive land divisions. A comprehensive action plan has been prepared to allot Bhudhaar numbers to all survey numbers in a phased manner.

Meanwhile, inspector-general of stamps and registration, Rajiv Gandhi Hanumanthu, announced that the department's website and related online services would remain unavailable from June 26 to 28 due to scheduled server maintenance works. He said the upgrade, being undertaken after nearly five years, was necessary to improve system performance, strengthen security standards and enhance service quality.

Since June 26 is a holiday for Muharram and June 28 falls on a Sunday, registration services would be disrupted on only one working day, June 27. All services will resume normally from June 29, and people have been advised to plan their registration-related activities accordingly.