Telangana government officials to help farmers settle their ownership disputes pertaining to agricultural lands

HYDERABAD: Farmers, who were denied Rythu Bandhu sop all these days due to the dispute of ownership on their agricultural lands, will soon get the benefit.
The state government has been giving Rs 10,000 per acre per annum as part of Rythu Bandhu scheme towards agriculture input cost to the farmers whose ownership documents of the land on which they were doing cultivation had no disputes.
Chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has directed the officials to settle the ownership disputes of the farmers if the issue is not in any court of law. For example, there was a dispute of ownership on the extent of land in CM KCR's adopted village of Laxmapur between farmers and the forest, revenue and other departments in Medchal-Malkajgiri district.
The dispute was resolved by the forest department in coordination with the farmers and revenue officials by redrawing the boundaries. Likewise, if the dispute is between farmers in the village, they would be brought on a table to settle it and avail Rythu Bandhu.
Medchal-Malkajgiri district collector V Venkateswarlu told TOI that Laxmapur is a revenue village with 3,800 acres of land.
The village did not have any revenue map though farmers were doing agriculture on the lands. "During a programme, CM KCR had promised the farmers that the issue would be settled. The entire village was resurveyed and boundaries were redefined in the case of land belonging to the forest and revenue departments and private land after disposing of objections and suggestions from the stakeholders," he said.
As many as 280 local farmers' lands were demarcated among other private owners. All these farmers would be eligible for Rythu Bandhu sop after the huge exercise of demarcating boundaries and updation of land records on integrated land records management portal is completed, said Venkateswarlu.
Likewise, respective district collectors will identify all such farmers whose ownership on the agriculture lands is in dispute. If there are no court cases, and the dispute is between the farmers of the village, or between family members or neighbours, they would bring on a table to settle the dispute with the help of available revenue records and village records.
Those not willing to settle the dispute will continue to be deprived of the Rythu Bandhu sop. District Collectors will conduct spot inquiries to establish ownership rights. The help of the local Rythu Samithi and local bodies representatives would also be taken if required, officials said.