Fifty-year-old Mupparaju Sujatha from Marlapadu village was hoping that the his ordeals pertaining to tampering of land records would end when the Andhra Pradesh govrnment launched the Jagananna Saswatha Bhu Hakku Bhu Raksha scheme by storing digital records of land through a comprehensive resurvey undertaken during January last year.
But much to her dismay, the QR code-based smart title card issued by the government showed that the ‘Land Parcel Number’ in the Bhu Hakku Patram belonged to a group of eight persons. As a result, she is finding it difficult to seek crop loan from bank. She wants sub-division of the land parcel.
Similar is the case of Pamidi Venkataratnam who has been issued joint land title with six other persons in his village near Tangutur.
“We have been running from pillar to post to get the sub-division done, but to no avail,” they complain.
The last land survey was undertaken during the British regime in 1920. An attempt was made for a resurvey in 1972, but was aborted midway. Now, the resurvey has been undertaken on a pilot basis in 1,845 villages involving more than 8 lakh farmers in the State by deploying drones. The exercise has been completed in 27 revenue villages in Prakasam district so far, say official sources.
‘’Farmers will have no objection if there is a shortfall of a few cents. But in some cases, the shortfall is up to 30 cents,” says Samyukta Kisan Morcha Prakasam district convenor Ch. Ranga Rao.
Standard operating procedure
It has been found that the standard operating procedure under the Digital Land Records Modernisation programme was followed more in breach than in observance, says Mr. Ranga Rao, who led a farmers’ delegation to the villages to study the way the resurvey was conducted.
Farmers spend sleepless nights in some cases as their surnames were wrongly spelt or the name of husband mentioned instead of father’s name in the QR code-based smart title cards, he adds.
“‘The resurvey exercise has not been beneficial to farmers. It has led to a lot of litigation among ryots, many of them relatives”Ch. Seshaiah Acharya N.G. Ranga Kisan Samastha general secretary
‘’The resurvey has not been beneficial to farmers. It has led to a lot of litigation among farmers, many of them relatives,” says Acharya N.G. Ranga Kisan Samastha general secretary Ch. Seshaiah. He asks why do the title-deed-cum-pattadar passbooks carry the photographs of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and former Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
A farmer, Katragadda Gopinath complains that he has been denied eight cents of land following the resurvey and the same has appeared in the record of another farmer.
‘’In case of shortfall in land, the revenue officials are suggesting them to reconcile with the fellow farmers amicably or go to court for adjudication of the dispute, which is time-consuming,” complains Nidumanur Brahmaiah, another farmer.
The cumbersome resurvey programme should not be hastened as the same would lead to many litigations, opines Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist) leader Lalitha Kumari.
The farmers who have been cultivating different types of government waste lands including ‘Devudu Manyam’, ‘Kunta Poramboke’ and ‘Vagu Poramboke’ are in an unenvious position as they cultivate these lands without title and institutional credit.
