Farmers in Telangana can now use their pattadar passbooks in electronic form in order to secure crop loans.

The State Government has cleared the way for this, and the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017 was promulgated last week.

At present, landowners are required to produce pattadar passbooks and title deeds for transactions related to land and to secure loans from any credit agency under Section 6-B and Section 6-C of the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971.

However, the ordinance noted, there have been several instances of farmers experiencing difficulties in obtaining agricultural loans from the lending agency given the insistence on producing passbook and title deed physically.

Since all the land-related data is computerised and maintained on the Maabhoomi portal, the government amended the Act to facilitate their digital use.

Under the ordinance, it is possible to validate the electronically maintained revenue records in the centralised storage devices and execute transactions through the Telangana Land Records Management Systems (TLRMS).

The hitherto-separate title deed and passbook can be combined to enable the farmers to obtain electronic pattadar passbooks and title deeds.

Banks and other credit agencies can sanction loans based on the revenue records maintained electronically in TLRMS without insisting on production of revenue records. This will reduce time for acquisition of rights from 90 days to 15 days and speed up the process of crop loans.

Registration officers have been directed to effect the registration of property on the basis of electronically maintained records.

Asked about the impact of the ordinance, a senior functionary of the State Level Banking Committee of Telangana said: “This can address many issues for banks such as fake pattadar passbooks and delays. However, the actual implementation such as real-time access of online recordswill be the key.’’

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