Telangana polls: Congress and BJP unite in criticism of KCR’s Dharani portal

In a move to digitally record and maintain land administration data in Telangana, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi government had introduced the Dharani portal in 2020. 

Nearly three years later, the portal has become a point of contention between the governing party and the opposition, particularly the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, due to discrepancies which have cropped up and caused an inconvenience to citizens. The Congress has promised to replace the entire system calling it corrupt. Ironically, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had launched the portal with the aim to combat corruption within the Revenue Department and bring transparency in land transactions. 

Both Congress and the BJP, in their respective manifestos, have promised to do away with the Dharani portal. The Congress has said it will replace it with the ‘Bhumata’ portal, while the BJP proposed the implementation of the ‘Mee Bhoomi’ portal, meaning that both want to replace and maintain some other system instead. The opposition parties allege that the Dharani portal facilitates land grabbing. 

BJP's state president G Kishan Reddy had said, “Dharani portal has only made problems worse rather than solving them. The court cases have increased and offices are overwhelmed with complaints.” Similarly, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has alleged that around 20 lakh people are suffering due to the Dharani portal. He accused KCR and his government of being involved in land encroachments through the portal.

Others from the state have also been vocal critics of the portal ever since it was introduced. Hyderabad-based RTI activist Robin Zacheus filed an RTI application, which revealed that thousands of complaints have been filed against Dharani – the highest were in Nizamabad district (over 21,000) and Jagtial (8,000 applications) between 2021 and 2022 alone.

In the outskirts of Hyderabad, a plot owners’ association that is embroiled in a legal tussle over land ownership, made its representatives file nominations against KCR from the Gajwel constituency. Ninety people filed nominations, but all were withdrawn on November 15. “A senior minister from the cabinet assured us it will be taken care of,” the member said, requesting anonymity. 

The association claims that the land purchased in 1988 was under litigation with previous owners. Post Dharani, the land records now display the names of previous owners, leading to disputes and clashes between groups.

Instances like this are not isolated; several landowners across Telangana are grappling with similar problems after the implementation of Dharani. 

“The records are uploaded without a proper survey and lack accuracy compared to other states,” said Palleturu Prasad, an advocate from Siddipet who is contesting from Dubbak assembly constituency.  Incidentally, the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh has opted for a survey program, with revenue officials inspecting the passbooks of landholders on the ground.

Amid mounting criticism, KCR has been quick to defend the Dharani portal in all his election campaign speeches. “Dharani is for farmers. It is to prevent any errors in the records which were happening historically,” KCR said. 

Palleturu Prasad said, “I received at least 176 cases related to Dharani from my district. It is human error by the officers of the revenue department. There are instances where Dharani reflects the old owner's name.” 

He added that he too was a “victim” of Dharani. “A landlord sold our community 37 acres of land in 1995, and despite having resale and mutation documents, Dharani displays the old owner's name. Even the lands assigned to the SC corporation, meant for Dalits, were not accurately reflected in the Dharani portal,” he alleged.

It is to be seen if complaints over Dharani will have a serious impact on the results in the upcoming November 30 elections. Results will be announced on December 3.

This report has been published as part of the joint NL-TNM Election Fund and is supported by hundreds of readers. Click here to power our ground reports.