HYDERABAD: All the 387 sub-registrar offices in the State have been asked to identify assigned lands and stop their registration following the raging political controversy involving Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy over transfer of these lands.

The Government has instructed them to immediately open "probatary registers". These records have to be maintained statutorily to indicate the extent of various categories of lands whose registration is banned. These are: lands assigned by Government to different disadvantaged sections, those declared surplus under the Land Ceiling Act, and Bhoodan, Inam, evacuees and Endowments lands.

Once land is assigned to a beneficiary -- be it an individual Dalit or an entrepreneur -- for setting up an industry, a revenue officer will have to notify the allotment to the sub-registrar office which, in turn, records the transaction in the "probatary registers". Preliminary enquiries by the Government show that this procedure has been ignored by a majority of sub-registrar offices.

"The probatary registers were not opened even after the ordinance was promulgated recently banning registration of such lands," laments Revenue Minister Dharmana Prasada Rao.

Officials' inaction

Inspector-General, Registration & Stamps, Lal Rosem, attributes the situation to "inaction" on the part of Revenue officials to notify to the sub-registrar office concerned immediately after the land allotment.

The Government wants to recover assigned lands but this is going to be a long-drawn process due to deficiencies in the system and also the huge extent involved. Nearly 55 lakh acres of land is said to have been distributed during the past 60-70 years. Over 50 per cent of this may have been sold away.

A decision has now been taken to hand over these lands after recovery to original assignees or to their legal heirs if they are no more.

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