Nothing changed after Bhu Bharathi replaced Dharani, says Harish Rao

Former Minister T Harish Rao criticised the State government over delays in resolving Bhu Bharathi complaints, issuing pattadar passbooks and processing Sadabainama applications. He alleged lack of clarity, pending reimbursements and failure to provide jobs to eligible VRAs’ kin.

Siddipet: Former Minister T Harish Rao, who made a surprise visit to the Siddipet Urban Tahsildar’s office on Thursday, expressed anger over the Tahsildar’s absence.

Speaking to reporters on the occasion, Harish Rao said people in the State were suffering as officials had failed to resolve revenue issues. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had claimed that Dharani was buried in the Bay of Bengal and replaced with Bhu Bharathi. Officials had received 8.68 lakh complaints from landholders during the grama sabhalu conducted across the State after the launch of Bhu Bharathi. However, there was no clarity on how many complaints had been resolved, with officials failing to update the status of the remaining applications, he said, accusing the government of failing to set a deadline for clearing applications.

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Pointing out that the Revenue department had not uploaded the complaints online even ten months after they were filed, the former Minister said nothing had changed after the launch of Bhu Bharathi. Accusing the government of charging Rs. 300 for issuing each new passbook, Rao said there was a serious delay in issuing pattadar passbooks over the past six months. The BRS government used to issue passbooks within a week, apart from completing the mutation process, and had completed the Sadabainama process for 6.20 lakh farmers as well. Stating that 9.25 lakh complaints were received in the second phase, Rao said the process could not be completed due to a court stay.

Even though the court stay was vacated after the Congress came to power, the government was complicating the process by asking buyers to obtain affidavits from sellers confirming the transaction to complete the process, he said, alleging that the Congress had jeopardised the entire exercise. None of the 9.25 lakh Sadabainama applications had been processed so far, as farmers were unable to obtain affidavits from sellers.

He also said the government had kept reimbursement of slot cancellation amounts pending for the past two and a half years, apart from failing to provide jobs to the kin of over 4,000 VRAs whose age had crossed 61 years.