Samaikyandhra stir halts registrations

Almost all sections of people – from students to farmers -- have been hit badly due to the closure of Stamps and Registration office

Paralysed: The office of the District Registrar of the Stamps and Registration department which remains closed in Eluru. Photo: A.V.G. Prasad

The deadlock over the fate of the State for over 45 days now brings in serious financial troubles for Sagiraju Rama Raju, an aqua farmer from Mallavaram village under Eluru mandal of West Godavari district.

He applied for a loan of Rs 25 lakh from a commercial bank in the city to meet feed cost in his fishpond in four acres.

The loan was sanctioned but pending disposal for want of mortgage registration to be executed in the office of Stamps and Registrations Department. As the prospects of getting it executed appear dim on account of the agitation, Mr. Raju is forced to borrow from private moneylenders for a higher rate of interest to meet the exigencies. “All my plans have gone haywire because of the agitation,” he told

The Hindu .

Problems galore

Similar is the plight of students seeking education loans to pursue higher education, newlyweds intending to get their marriages registered, people willing to obtain loans for purchase of vehicles and those in the realty sector who want to get their land deals executed through the Stamps and Registration Department. “Thank god, I managed to secure admission for my son in an engineering college in spite of the agitation with great difficulty,” R.V.S. Ramachandra Rao, DPRO, says, heaving a sigh of relief.

He had to procure a stamp paper with a face value of Rs 100 from the office of Sub Registrar at Sattupalli of Khammam district in Telangana region through a contact enabling his son to enter into an agreement with a bank offering a loan of Rs 4 lakh. Many students, whose credit requirements exceeding more than Rs 4 lakh, are not as lucky as the officer’s son as their loan amounts will not be released by the banks without executing the mortgage registrations by the Stamps and Registration Department as is the stipulation.

Sale of papers suspended

It has literally become a wild goose chase for people to obtain stamp papers to make certain agreements outside the confines of the Stamps and Registration office like the ones relating to land deals and vehicle financing. The authorities of the Stamps and Registration Department suspended sale of stamp papers to the vendors since the start of the Samaikhyandhra agitation. Vendors are reportedly indulging in procuring them from the Telangana region unofficially and selling them two-three times more than their face values.

According to official information, the department suffered a revenue loss of Rs 30 crore in the district as all the registrations came to a standstill due to the agitation.