Hyderabad: The Telangana cabinet, which has decided to constitute a Special Enquiry Team (SET) to probe various irregularities in the Dharani and Bhu Bharati land portals, has reportedly appointed director general-rank officer Charu Sinha, who is currently heading the CID and ACB.Other members of the SET include police officers Sindhu Sharma and Harisha Vardhan, joint secretary in IT department Anudeep Durishetty, IAS officer Manda Makarand, and a technical officer from the National Informatics Centre (NIC).Sources in the govt said the cabinet has approved the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the SET, and the govt order (GO) is expected to be issued within the next couple of days. Officials said the committee has been authorised to engage the services of agencies or individuals with expertise in forensic records, technical issues and relevant domains.
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Revenue minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy has already announced that there are more than 10,000 suspicious transactions on both the Dharani and Bhu Bharati land portals. The previous BRS govt launched the Dharani land portal on Oct 29, 2020, and a private agency managed the software. After the Congress came to power in Dec 2023, the govt entrusted the portal’s management to the National Informatics Centre (NIC). Sources in the govt said the probe would also cover the tendering process for the design and management of the Dharani portal.Revenue officials said major irregularities had occurred in both the Dharani and, later, the Bhu Bharati portals, with assigned lands and govt lands, including Bhoodan, Waqf and endowment lands, being transferred into the names of private individuals by exploiting loopholes in the software.“In some cases, govt lands were transferred to private individuals by changing survey numbers or using sub-division numbers,” a senior revenue department official said.A private agency has already submitted a report to the govt on suspicious transactions on the Dharani portal in some districts. A committee was also constituted to identify loopholes in the existing Bhu Bharati software and recommend the necessary changes.
