15 held in Dharani, Bhu Bharati land registration scam in Telangana

Hyderabad, Jan 16 (PTI) Fifteen people were arrested for allegedly causing a loss of Rs 3.9 crore to government through alleged irregularities in land registrations on 'Dharani' and 'Bhu Bharati' portals in Jangaon and Yadadri Bhuvanagiri districts of Telangana, police said on Friday.

The Jangaon police arrested 15 members of a gang in a major scam involving Dharani and Bhu Bharati land registrations, Warangal Police Commissioner Sunpreet Singh said.

Another nine accused are currently absconding, he said.

The accused committed fraud in transactions related to 1,080 documents across Jangaon and Yadadri districts.

A total of 22 cases have been registered— seven cases in Jangaon district and 15 cases in Yadadri district, the Police Commissioner said.

Police seized Rs 63.19 lakh in cash, Rs One lakh deposited in bank accounts, property documents worth approximately Rs One crore, one car, two laptops, five desktop computers, and 17 mobile phones from the accused, an official release said.

Two prime accused, who are running online service centres, along with other accused collected money from farmers and allegedly mainpulated the payment challans generation process to reduce the challan amount.

The accused collected money from farmers through Mee Seva operators by claiming that the payments would be made through an NRI account. From the collected amounts, commissions were paid to online service operators and middlemen, while the remaining amount was sent to the prime accused, police said.

"The prime accused used the “Inspect – Edit Application” option on the Dharani/Bhu Bharati websites to reduce the challan amount and the edited challans were sent back to farmers through mobile phones", police said.

Similarly, by using mobile applications, the accused altered the government-issued receipts on the website, showing lesser amounts than actually payable.

"They paid only the reduced amount to the government and submitted the fake challans through middlemen at local MRO and registration offices, thereby cheating the government and causing heavy revenue loss," police said.

To earn easy money, the prime accused took control of Dharani and Bhu Bharati registration documents that were supposed to be registered through Mee Seva centers, online service providers, and middlemen in Jangaon and Yadadri districts, and processed them themselves on the website, police further said.

In return, they paid commissions ranging from 10 per cent to 30 per cent to others involved, police added.

The Congress government launched the 'Bhu Bharati' portal for land administration by replacing the 'Dharani' land records management system introduced during the previous BRS regime. PTI VVK VVK ROH