After revenue, Telangana to clip powers of registration department

HYDERABAD: After curtailing the powers of tahsildars in mutation of lands and other powers through new Revenue Act, Telangana government is now gearing up to cut the discretionary powers of registration and stamps (R&S) department soon. The government is also planning to initiate reforms to reduce corruption in the department.
The government has recently issued orders restricting the sub-registrar offices (SROs) for registering only non-agriculture properties, while tahsildars have been given powers to register agriculture properties.
Official sources said the R&S department is registering properties by collecting registration and stamp duty fees based on the agreement value of the property (between the two parties) and government value of the property whichever is higher. “Under section 47-A of the Indian Stamp Act, the R&S department has powers to revise the registration value of the property. This revision is done if a particular property is valued high though it is located in a bylane or not suitable for development. In such cases, the R&S department can reduce the value of the property 20% to even up to 50% justifying the reason for reduction and conducting inspection. Now, the government is now planning to scrap such powers to the department officials,” a senior official of CMO said. Secondly, the SROs are taking two to three days for providing scanned copies of registration documents to the parties after registration is done. Officials said the government wants to ensure the registration scanned document should be provided on the same day even entrusting the scanning work to the private agencies.
The CM said document templates would be kept ready, which can be used by the prospective buyers and sellers of the properties for registrations. “Only one or two document writers will be given licence to help people who cannot prepare the documents on their own. Taking action against them if they indulge in any malpractices like cancellation of the licence will be incorporated in the reforms,” sources said.
Following allegations that many document writers have become conduits for SROs in collecting bribes along with their document preparation charges, the CM has directed the officials to issue licence to one or two document writers