Telangana Makes Aadhaar Linking Of Land Mandatory

In case you fail to link your bank account or mobile number with your Aadhaar by March 31, you would not be able to do any transactions or make calls. The same is true of a hoard of services and welfare schemes of the government ─ the Supreme Court had earlier extended the mandatory Aadhaar linking deadline to March 31. This is happening nationwide. Telangana has gone a step further when it comes to mandatory linking of Aadhaar.

Land that is not linked with Aadhaar in the southern state would be considered benami, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao recently said. The warning was issued in light of the fact that several farmers, especially in Medchal and Rangareddy districts, were fighting shy of linking their land record with their Aaddhar numbers when a drive to do so was underway in the state recently.

The exercise was aimed at organising land records and ending "confusion on ownership of lands in the state". According to media reports the drive must have brought to the notice of authorities benami transactions in the state. The state will set a deadline within which farmers of the state would have to link their land ownership records with Aadhaar, failing which they would be declared benami.

The CM also directed officials that pattadar passbooks be given to those farmers who have already been assigned lands.

It is worth mentioning here that the CM would distribute land-ownership passbooks to the state's farmers on March 11. However, according a report published by The Hindu on February 18, the agency responsible to print the pattadar passbooks had at the time not started the work of printing the documents. Owing to "technical reasons", the Security Printing Press, a unit of the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited, had not started the process for printing about 72 lakh pattadar passbooks.

However, the delay in printing may not cause a delay in issuance of the documents, the report said, citing officials.

"The security printing press has the capacity to print lakhs of passbooks each day and printing the quantum required by the government should not be an issue at all," the report quoted an official as saying.

Issued by the revenue department under the Record of Rights Act, pattadar passbook would carry all details of owner and the property, along with a unique 13-digit identity number. Key details mentioned on the passbook include land-ownership details, photo identity of the owner, details of loans, names of tenants, etc.

"Every entry in the passbooks should be scrutinised thoroughly and there shall not be any error in the entries. While doing so, there should not be any undue haste," Rao told officials on February 23.

With inputs from Housing News