Hyderabad, Jun 2 (IANS): The Telangana government on Wednesday decided to launch a pilot digital survey of agriculture lands in 27 villages from June 11.

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao directed Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar to select three villages from his Assembly constituency Gajwel and remaining 24 villages from 24 districts.

The Chief Minister on Wednesday held a review meeting on digital survey issue with representatives from the survey agencies. This comes a day after Somesh Kumar held a preliminary meeting with various companies to take up digital land survey in the state.

The state government has allocated Rs 400 crore in the 2021-22 budget towards carrying digital land survey in the state

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, told the meeting on Wednesday that the government launched Dharani portal to protect the land rights of the poor.

"With an aim to make Telangana a land dispute-free state, the state government is conducting the digital survey of the agriculture lands. The government's aim is to conduct digital survey of agriculture lands in the state, fix the coordinates and there by provide total security and protection to the pattadars on a permanent basis," he said.

The CM said that initially, the pilot survey should be done a mixed bunch of villages where there are no disputes and where there are disputes and get the field level experience on the matter. After this, guidelines should be prepared for carrying out the survey across the state. He wanted the survey of the agriculture lands should be taken up first and later, the urban lands.

KCR said with agriculture lands disputes in the villages resolved with Dharani portal, the proposed digital survey would be 100 per cent successful.

Discussed the guidelines for the survey with the survey agencies, he asked them for the proposed action plan in depth. He suggested to them that state of the art technology should be utilised so that there should not be any dispute over even an inch of the land. He also said that it would be responsibility of the survey agencies to conduct the survey perfectly and any laxity on their part, the government would not hesitate to take action against them.

Noting that the Collectors, MLAs and MPs and other public representatives would be available to cooperate with the survey, he reiterated that the entire responsibility of the survey rests with the agencies.

He pointed out that in the countries where the land disputes are settled, the GDP went up 3 to 4 per cent. "Even if we make a small mistake, the future generation would have to pay heavily. The Telangana government has embarked on land survey keeping in view the experiences of past rulers and to ensure that people are not made to pay for the mistakes of the rulers," he added.