Hyderabad: Ther uling Congress may seek to make the completion of the ongoing comprehensive land resurvey a key election plank for the 2028 Assembly elections, with the Revenue Department targeting completion of the exercise across Telangana within the next one-and-a-half to two years.
The Congress had made the land-related ‘Dharani Portal’ one of the major issues in its 2023 election campaign and subsequently came to power.
With the next Assembly elections expected in about two years, the government’s decision to undertake a comprehensive land resurvey is being viewed by political observers as another major land-related issue that could feature prominently in the 2028 polls.
Political analysts said Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy’s statement on Monday about completing the resurvey within one-and-a-half to two years appears to indicate that the government intends to complete the exercise before the next elections.
They said the Congress could use the completed resurvey as an achievement and an important election issue.
A farmer from the erstwhile Rangareddy district, Balaiah, said completing the comprehensive land resurvey before the elections could give the ruling Congress an edge in the 2028 polls.
“Elections are different, but if the government completes the comprehensive land resurvey, it will certainly have an advantage,” he said, adding that land-related problems had increased after the formation of Telangana.
He said it was the responsibility of the Congress government to resolve the issues as it had made several promises regarding land rights in its manifesto.
Meanwhile, the Revenue Minister said measures were underway to resurvey every inch of land in every revenue village across Telangana over the next one-and-a-half to two years.
Modern technology would be used to assign a unique identification number to each land parcel, similar to Aadhaar numbers for individuals, with the proposed system providing ‘Bhu-Aadhaar’ numbers for land parcels.
The minister said the government had replaced the Dharani system with Bhu Bharati to clean up land records and provide farmers and landowners with greater security and clarity over their land rights.
The government has initially taken up the comprehensive land survey in 70 revenue villages in every district.
Maps incorporating geographical coordinates would also be prepared as part of the exercise.
The Congress had campaigned aggressively against Dharani ahead of the 2023 elections, even promising to “throw the Dharani Portal into the Bay of Bengal” after coming to power.
In its manifesto, the party promised to replace Dharani with the ‘Bhumatha’ (Bhu Bharati) portal, conduct a comprehensive land survey, issue ‘Bhudhar Cards’ to farmers, implement the recommendations of the Koneru Ranga Rao Land Committee, establish a Land Commission and set up a Revenue Tribunal to safeguard land rights.
In line with these promises, the Congress government renamed Dharani as Bhu Bharati and introduced the “Telangana Bhu Bharati (Record of Rights in Land) Act, 2025”, which came into force on April 14, 2025.
