Govt to probe ‘suspicious' land deals under BRS rule
Hyderabad: Suspecting that thousands of acres belonging to the state, waqf, and endowment department were illegally transferred to private individuals during BRS govt in Hyderabad and surrounding districts of Rangareddy, Medchal, Sangareddy, Yadadri-Bhongiri and Siddipet, the Telangana govt has decided to conduct a forensic audit of the land records soon.
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A Kerala-based company has now been given the task of conducting the forensic audit and the govt will formally sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in a couple of days. The govt may set a time frame of about three months to complete the audit.
"The state govt has decided to conduct a forensic audit of land, especially for suspicious transactions done during BRS govt. An agency was picked after considering two to three firms with experience in land record management.
The govt will release full details on the audit in a couple of days," revenue minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy told TOI on Thursday.
The govt will provide data on govt and prohibited land in the specified districts before 2014 and later to the agency, which will also look into transactions through the Dharani portal from its inception in Oct 2020 until Dec 2023. The firm will investigate if there was any tampering of land records, place, and time of the suspected illegal land transactions.
The forensic audit can be done via digital footprint and blockchain technology, but it was not clear which one will be used by the firm. A digital footprint, also known as a digital fingerprint or digital dossier, is the data a person generates when using the internet for any type of activity linked to that person's individual identity. This encompasses the entire online activity, both via and outside of the person's accounts, IP addresses, and transaction history on devices connected to the internet.
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Chief minister A Revanth Reddy and revenue minister Srinivas Reddy have alleged that govt land was illegally mutated and transferred by tampering with records during BRS govt since 2014, especially after the Dharani land portal was launched in Oct 2020. The CM had alleged that some transactions were done through the Dharani portal even during midnights and from outside the country too.
As per the state govt estimates, about 2,000 acres of govt land in HMDA and surrounding areas changed ownership to private parties as patta land. Along with this, some people, especially politicians, applied for regularisation scheme under encroached govt land (GO 59) and had it transferred in their name.
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