Top News

Hyderabad: Telangana Revenue and Housing Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy has instructed his officials to complete the re-survey of lands as per the Telangana Bhu Bharati (Record of Rights in Land ) Act, 2024, in three phases by March 2027.

Ponguleti held a review of various revenue and housing related matters with all the district collectors from Khammam on Saturday, July 11, where he has directed the officials to review the applications rejected for the registration of ‘Saada Bainama’ lands, and to determine the reasons for the rejection.

In simple terms, Saada Bainama lands were the ones where the land owner and buyer used to get into a sale deed by mutually signing the terms of sale on a white paper with their signatures. This has been going on since the times of the Nizams.

Ponguleti directed the officials to issue notices to those whose applications were rejected under the Saada Bainama, and to resolve those issues soon.

From October to November 2020, the then Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government had accepted applications for the regularisation of Saada Bainama lands, for which 8.90 lakh applications were received.

Due to the repeal of the Record of Rights Act of 1971 in that year and the enactment of The Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act in 2020, the process for the regularisation of Saada Bainama lands had hit legal hurdles and the application process got stalled.

After repealing that earlier legislation by The Telangana Bhu Bharati (Record of Rights Act of 2025 enacted by the present Congress government, notices were served by the beneficiaries and the sellers of Saada Bainama lands.

As per the new legislation, the Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO) has been made the authority to take decision on the ownership rights with respect to Saada Bainama lands. As per the Act, the Mandal Revenue Officer (MRO) would have to conduct an inquiry and forward the report to the RDO, who will make the final decision.

The issue arose due to the requirement that only those applications would have to be considered which where the Saada Bainama deeds were signed before June 2, 2014, the Telangana Formation Day.

Many farmers who possessed any other documents other than the sale deed signed on the white paper. There were also those who were in position of those lands, but didn’t have the required documents.

In this respect, the role of the revenue officials becomes crucial. Some of them have been submitting pahanis and receipts of CESS paid by them for those lands.

After 2016, when ‘Jamabandi,’ a Nizam-era document was discontinued, there has been no proper information related to those lands in the pahanis.

Due to the revenue records still showing the sellers of lands as the original owners of those lands in the revenue records, those landlords have not been coming forward to register those lands in the names of the buyers who bought those lands through Saada Bainama documents.

In many cases, as the original sellers of those lands had died long back, their successors have been reluctant to register the lands in the names of the applicants. There are also land owners who have been demanding the buyers under Saada Bainamas to pay a certain amount to register the lands purchased by their ancestors, as the land prices have been on the rise.