Panguleti says the government will resolve the boundary dispute between the revenue and forest departments

The state government has decided to appoint 1000 surveyors in the coming days to resolve the dispute between the revenue and forest department.

Revenue Minister Panguleti Srinivasa Reddy admitted that people, especially tribals, have been suffering due to border disputes between the two departments. Out of 119 assembly constituencies, the problem persists in 35 and the government has decided to solve it permanently. He asked the MLAs to submit letters on the magnitude of the problem in their respective areas so that the government could take initiatives to solve it. Tribals and non-tribals who have been cultivating land for decades have been asked to vacate their land. Forest department officials are harvesting the crops raised by these people,” he said.

Responding to a question during Question Time in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday, Mr. Panguleti Srinivasa Reddy said that when the Congress government took power, only 242 were working out of the requirement of 892 surveyors. It was therefore decided to appoint a sufficient number of surveyors to ensure that land ownership disputes do not recur in future.

“Preparations are being made to demarcate and resolve the dispute between the two departments,” he said.

In another query regarding the application for solving the problems that arose after the Dharani portal came into operation, the minister said that the government still has a lot of work to do to streamline the revenue administration so that the common people are not inconvenienced. Accordingly, initiatives to strengthen revenue administration at the village level were initiated while genuine applications for occupational rights certificates, which were on the prohibited list, were being resolved.

“We are taking steps to see that genuine ORC certificates are cleaned and only fake ORCs are placed on the banned list,” he said.

The members complained that tribals with actual leases issued under the Forest Rights Act were denied the right to cultivate the land. Most of these leases were not updated as part of the land record update program initiated by the previous government, denying tribals their right to cultivate podu. They have requested the government to cancel all the cases filed against the farmers who have been cultivating podu for the past few years.