Telangana launched Bhu Bharati portal in five mandals | Photo credit: BY ARRANGEMENT
The Telangana government has initiated a major reform in land administration by launching the integrated Bhu Bharati portal on a pilot basis in five mandals.
After the transaction is completed, the government will include land maps in the passbooks for the first time in the country. The maps are incorporated in the passbook in accordance with the provisions contained in the Telangana Bhu Bharati (Record of Rights in Land) Act, 2025. As per Section 5 of the Act, it is mandatory to submit the survey/subdivision map as prescribed along with the applications. The same provision is reflected in other sections (Sections 7, 8 and 10) of the Act, which is initially implemented on the basis of transactions such as mutation, inheritance. This will be extended to all other transaction methods in the future. “From such date as may be prescribed, it shall be mandatory to submit a survey/division map along with the application,” says Section 7 of the Bhu Bharati Act.
The purpose of the system, according to officials, is to prevent a mismatch between the farm listed in the passbook and the farm under actual ownership, known in local parlance as ‘Vivat Kabja’. The inclusion of the map will ensure that there is no scope for double registration of land and the land on which the transaction takes place will get a unique identification number, locally called Bhudhaar. ULPIN, Unique Land Parcel Identification Number, as the central government calls it, will ensure that a land owner can check the boundaries of his land from time to time by simply logging on to the revenue department’s website.
“The same map will also be updated in the Rights Act once the transaction takes place,” land law expert M. Sunil Kumar, who was part of the core team that drafted the Telangana Bhu Bharati Act to replace the previous BRS government’s Act, told The Hindu. The Karnataka model has been adopted by the state government, where pre-registration map incorporation has been successfully implemented over the past few years, reducing scope for litigation.
While the maps will form part of all transactions in future, land owners who want to get Bhudhaar numbers for their plots can apply for the same from the department. The process, hitherto cumbersome, was reformed with the introduction of land surveyors and rovers to accurately measure land.
Another benefit of incorporating maps into land transactions is the “incremental survey” that will take place on agricultural land in affected villages. Although the Records of Rights Act of 1948 made it mandatory to include the subdivision of a parcel of land once a transaction occurred, the completion of a new survey of the entire lots became an obstacle to its implementation. Incorporating the maps into the passbooks ensures that the survey of a portion of the land is completed to that extent during the transaction and ensures that the entire village is resurveyed over a period of time.
Published – 03 Apr 2026 16:10 IST
