Telangana: Congress government’s Bhu Bharathi falters as scam exposes cracks

Hyderabad’s Bhu Bharathi portal faces a revenue diversion scam as 15 Meeseva operators siphoned off registration fees and stamp duty. Experts cite technical loopholes, weak access controls, and rushed implementation, leaving farmers and buyers trapped in systemic inefficiencies

Hyderabad: The Congress government’s much-publicised Bhu Bharathi portal, which was touted as a transparent alternative to the previous Dharani system, has been rocked by a major revenue diversion scam. The incident raised serious questions over its design, security and implementation nearly 18 months after launch.

Despite repeated claims of reform, the new system had only worsened over the period. The recent arrest of 15 Meeseva operators in Jangaon and Warangal for siphoning off crores of rupees has exposed deep technical loopholes in Bhu Bharathi.

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Investigators found that agents manipulated challan values through editable fields in the portal’s backend, diverted 90 per cent of registration fees and stamp duty into private accounts, and left barely 10 per cent for the government, exposing failure of basic security protocols. An investigation launched by the revenue authorities had no major breakthrough.

What is particularly alarming is that mandal-level officers were not given access to verify stamp duty or registration charges, which was an elementary safeguard that existed even before digitisation. This blind spot allowed middlemen to return with renewed power, while farmers and buyers were left vulnerable.

Despite the Congress narrative, the Dharani portal implemented by the previous BRS regime, functioned with defined access controls, single-window processing and a workflow that reduced discretionary power. Notwithstanding certain setbacks, the portal enabled constant upgradation to introduce new modules and also never experienced such security issues.

On the contrary, Bhu Bharathi which was rushed into operation without testing, has reversed those gains, reintroducing middlemen, delays and system manipulation.

Experts from NIC, who were brought in belatedly to repair the mess, have reportedly warned that it may take at least six more months to stabilise the portal. Meanwhile, key services like land mutation, inheritance transfers and rectification of passbook errors have remained stuck. Farmers are shuttling between offices, unable to book slots or upload documents, facing the same chaos Bhu Bharathi was supposed to eliminate.

The Congress government’s failure lies not only in flawed coding but in ignoring ground realities. For a year and a half, issues flagged by users, revenue officials and IT teams have been brushed aside. Instead of acknowledging systemic weaknesses, the government attempted to shift blame to the previous Dharani portal, only reacting after the scam exploded into public view.

Though Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, who presented a two-year progress report last month, vowed to rollout a complete Bhu Bharati system from Sankranthi festival, there has been no major progress in this regard. Instead of plugging the loopholes and implementing a field-tested framework, the Congress continues to blame the previous BRS regime and create new avenues for fraud, while the common citizen pays the price.

In a move that has triggered public outrage, CCLA (Chief Commission of Land Administration) officials are issuing notices to farmers over irregular land registrations, even as the police investigations revealed that the fraud was engineered by operators and enabled by systemic loopholes. Over 80 people in Jangaon alone have received notices, including farmers who legally registered their land.

Revenue officials said farmers must disclose whom they paid during registration to identify culprits, warning that otherwise the legally mandated amount will be recovered from them, raising concerns of harassment. They stated that the inquiry into official complicity was also underway, with the high-level committee examining why Tahsildars failed to detect a scam of such scale. Though January 17 was set as a deadline, there has been no breakthrough.