Uncertainty prevails over the time by which land registrations are likely to be resumed in the State.
The officials of the Stamps and Registration department appeared clueless when asked about the possible date of resumption of registrations. “We have absolutely no idea as to when the services will be resumed,” a senior official said.
The development comes in the light of holidays declared for all the registration and sub-registrar offices under the provisions of the Registration Act, 1908 which came into effect from September 8 and the government asserted that the holidays would continue till further notice. The orders were issued ahead of the passage of the new Revenue Acts in the State Legislature.
The government said, in its orders, that there was need for bringing in processes and technical applications with respect to registration of property documents to provide quality services to the people and hence, the stoppage of registrations. Subsequently, the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 2002 was passed by the Legislature with a major focus on deploying IT mechanisms to prevent human interface to the extent possible and thereby, avoid scope for corruption at different levels.
Senior officials said since the new Acts passed recently clearly demarcated the roles of the sub-registrar and tahsildar at the grassroots level, operational guidelines should accordingly be issued for them to effectively administer the provisions of the Acts. “Tahsildars, for instance, have been designated as joint sub-registrars and they should have training,” a senior official told The Hindu.
Since tahsildars are empowered to register agricultural lands and properties, they should be aware of the processes that should be adopted for registering such lands. “Some amount of training will give them hands-on experience in handling these matters,” the official said.
The Bill, the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 2002, is reportedly sent to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan after it was passed by the Legislature. The operational guidelines would be prepared once the Governor gives her assent to the legislation and this may take some time.
Meanwhile, officials in the Stamps and Registration department said registrations came to a grinding halt after the announcement of holidays by the government. “The revenue on an average was around ₹25 crore last financial year. But, the impact of COVID coupled with the holidays brought the process to a grinding halt thereby affecting the revenue,” a senior official said.
This was, however, not a loss to the government as it was deferred revenue. “This is not a loss, it is only a deferment as the parties will have to register their properties once the process starts,” he said.
