Telangana halts all land registrations as VRO system set to be abolished
In a significant move towards enacting the New Revenue Act to revamp the Revenue System in Telangana, the state government Bill in the monsoon sessions of the Assembly, the state government on Monday issued orders declaring the holiday for the land registrations across the state from Tuesday till further orders.
However, registration of will deeds, administration of marriages and franking services will continue as usual. The people visited sub registrar offices across the state for registrations shocked at the decision of the state government and staged their protests against the decision taking without prior notice.
As part of exercise to bring major reforms in the Revenue department as part of the proposed new Revenue Act, the state government on Monday ordered the Village Revenue Officers across the state to handover the land records with them to the Tahsildars concerned before 3 pm on Monday.
With these orders it is crystal clear that the state government has decided to abolish the VRO system in the state. Chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao while addressing the TRS Legislature Party meeting said to have disclosed that the New Revenue Act will be introduced in the Assembly on Thursday.
Stating that the objective of bringing the New Act is to providing quality, ransparent and corrupt free land related services to citizens including registration of property documents, the chief minister asked the MLAs and Ministers to take the object of the Act extensively into the public and also weed out the misconceptions among the people about the New Act.
The Chief Minister also said to have told the MLAs and Ministers to celebrate busting the fire crackers in villages across the state after introduction of the New Act in the House.
As far as the order of declaring the holiday of registrations concerned, the Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar in the GO made it clear that the orders have been issued under the Registration Act, 1908.
Accordingly, the authorities concerned also have stopped booking slots for registrations and selling the revenue stamps on Monday itself.
Only those who have booked slots on Monday, were allowed to get their
lands and other properties registered as per schedule.
Earlier in the day the Chief Secretary directed the district collectors across the state to instruct VROs to hand over all the records including original, photostat copies, online copies, printed and handwritten copies available with them, to the Tahsildars.
Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar instructed the district collectors to complete the process by 3 pm on a priority basis and send a compliance report to the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA) by 5.30 pm. Until further orders, the records will be maintained at mandal level under the personal custody of the Tahsildars.
Meanwhile, sources in the government disclosed that around 60 percent of revenue records were handed over to the Tahsildars concerned by the VROs across the state on Monday evening and remaining will be completed likely to late in the night.
