The Minister for Revenue, Registration and Stamps, Anagani Satya Prasad said the government was looking into ways to reclaim the lands allotted on a large-scale to individuals and private entities through dubious means in the last five years and that it would bring a Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act that would be more stringent than the ones enacted by Gujarat and some other States, with due focus on taking back assigned lands and ‘dotted lands’ that changed hands.
Briefing media persons about the Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s review meeting on the Revenue Department on July 29 (Monday), Mr. Satya Prasad said that 80% of the grievances being received by the government were related to land, and allotments made in the name of Dalits, and under the housing scheme, which would be closely scrutinised.
Special Chief Secretary R.P. Sisodia would be soon visiting all the districts starting with the erstwhile Chittoor, Nellore, Prakasam and Visakhapatnam to examine the land allotments there and clean up the records. He said much of what happened between 2019 and 2024 was because the officials acted as per the whims and fancies of the then Ministers, elected representatives and their henchmen.
Mr. Satya Prasad said like in the case related to the fire that broke out in the Sub-Collector office in Madanapalle, officials involved in fraudulent land allotments would be held accountable as the corrupt ones ought to have the fear of law.
As the government started probing the land allotments, thousands of grievances were pouring in, he said, adding due attention was being paid to ascertain who were the beneficiaries of the dotted land transactions. New Pattadar passbooks were being printed at a cost of roughly ₹20 crore.
The Minister said the Chief Minister took a serious note of the land allotments and sought more detailed information in order to decide on the way forward in the next review meeting. He observed that the YSR Congress Party government spent a whopping ₹650 crore from the budget on engraving Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s name and photo on about 77 lakh land survey stones, removing which entailed an estimated burden of ₹12-15 crore.
Clear case of sabotage
Mr. Sisodia said that the Madanapalle Sub-Collector office fire incident was clearly a case of conspiracy and there was every reason to believe that the previous RDO was involved in it.
The Director of Electrical Safety ruled out the scope for a short circuit, he said, observing that the fire could not burn nearly 2,450 files to ashes before the fire tenders arrived in just about 15 minutes unless there were chemical accelerators that stoked the blaze. There was proof of the presence of a large number of tampered files in the office at that time, which suggested that it was an act of deliberate arson, he added.
