For many, the fraud translated into a cruel double whammy — having lost their money once and being asked to pay again.
Published Jan 17, 2026 | 6:03 PM ⚊ Updated Jan 17, 2026 | 6:03 PM
Representational image. Credit: iStock
Synopsis: The Bhu Bharati land records portal scam in Telangana has exposed massive cyber-enabled revenue fraud, with manipulated registrations, forged e‑challans and collusion siphoning off crores. Losses, initially pegged at ₹52 crore, are rising as arrests mount, including a ₹3.90 crore racket in Jangaon and Yadadri. Farmers face double payments, sparking outrage, while probes widen under Lokayukta and police scrutiny.
The noose is tightening around what is now emerging as one of Telangana’s most intricate cyber-enabled revenue frauds. The Bhu Bharati land records portal scam is snowballing into a full-blown scandal involving manipulated registrations, forged e-challans and alleged internal collusion.
It all began as a trickle of discrepancies and soon they turned into a floodtide revelations, arrests and expanding probes. They exposed sophisticated racket which quietly siphoned off crores due to flow into the state state exchequer.
Initially the revenue department estimated the loss to be around Rs 52 crore. But fraud is expanding as fresh arrests and losses of ₹3.90 crore to the exchequer in specific cases in Jangaon and Yadadri Bhuvanagiri districts surfaced. As the investigation gathers momentum, officials concede that this figure may only be the tip of the iceberg, with the overall misappropriation likely to swell.
Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy has been repeatedly at the centre of official responses to the unfolding crisis, stressing accountability, forensic audits towards the abuse of digital systems meant to safeguard public assets. The scam has also triggered political crossfire, public outrage and institutional intervention, including a suo motu probe by the Telangana Lokayukta.
The scam surfaced on 7 January, 2026, when Jangaon tahsildar Indrapally Hussain lodged a formal complaint at the Jangaon police station after detecting glaring discrepancies in e-challans related to land registrations. Investigations revealed that while farmers and landowners were paying the prescribed fees in full, only a fraction of those amounts was actually making its way into the government treasury.
The complaint led to the registration of the first criminal case, under sections of cheating, cyber tampering and fraud under BNSS and IT Act. Early probes pointed to a network operating through private internet centres, where collected funds were systematically siphoned off before reaching official payment gateways.
On 10 January, the Telangana Lokayukta took suo motu cognisance of the irregularities, directing a comprehensive probe into what it termed large-scale fraud. The anti-corruption watchdog sought detailed reports from key officials, including the Chief Secretary, the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA) and the MeeSeva Commissioner, thereby widening the scope of the investigation beyond routine police action.
Under flak from various quarters, Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy issued a sharp directive to officials on 12 January, cracking the whip on frauds linked to both Dharani and Bhu Bharati portals. Expressing anger over the exploitation of technical loopholes, he insisted on stringent action, recovery of funds siphoned off and the filing of criminal cases against those responsible.
“Digital governance comes with accountability, and misuse will not be tolerated,” the minister asserted, while also announcing that Bhu Bharati would be fully rolled out to the public in March 2026 with enhanced technological safeguards to prevent recurrence of such frauds.
Two days later, on 14 January, the revenue department estimated the losses at ₹52 crore across nearly 4,800 suspicious transactions. The bulk of these were traced to Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district, which alone accounted for 1,367 cases, followed by Rangareddy and Jangaon. A high-level committee was constituted to accurately quantify losses, recommend systemic reforms and plug vulnerabilities.
On 15 January, the scandal took a serious turn when farmers affected by the fraud began receiving notices from revenue authorities demanding payment of outstanding balances. The move triggered widespread outrage. The farmers insisted that they had already paid the full registration fees to operators. For many, the fraud translated into a cruel double whammy — having lost their money once and being asked to pay again.
The most dramatic development came on 16 January, when Jangaon police cracked down on a gang allegedly involved in a ₹3.90 crore fraud spanning Dharani and Bhu Bharati portals in Jangaon and Yadadri districts. 15 were arrested, while nine others remain at large.
Warangal Commissioner of Police Sunpreet Singh, briefing the media, identified the prime accused as Pasunuri Basava Raju (32) and Jella Pandu (46), operators of online service centres at Yadagirigutta in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district. Another key accused, Maheshwaram Ganesh Kumar (39), allegedly collected registration fees from farmers through MeeSeva operators and online centres, promising to route payments via NRI accounts.
According to investigators, the money was sliced up as commissions ranging from 10 to 30 percent for operators and middlemen, with the remainder funnelled to the kingpins. Police seized ₹63.19 lakh in cash, ₹1 lakh from bank accounts, property documents worth around ₹1 crore, a car, two laptops, five desktop computers and 17 mobile phones during the raids.
The accused are alleged to have exploited technical flaws in the portals by using mobile applications and specialised software to manipulate challan amounts. Forged receipts showing full payment were issued to farmers, while only minimal sums were remitted to the government through the SBI e-pay gateway.
The scam reportedly spanned 1,080 registration documents across the two districts. In all, 22 cases have been registered — seven in Jangaon and 15 in Yadadri.
Those arrested include Pasunuri Basava Raju (32), Jella Pandu (46), Maheshwaram Ganesh Kumar (39), Eegajulapati Srinath (35), Yenagandhula Venkatesh (35), Konduri Sravan (35), Kolipaka Sathish Kumar (36), Tadoori Ranjith Kumar (39), Dumpala Kishan Reddy (29), Dasarath Meghavath (28), Nara Bhanu Prasad (30), Gopagani Srinath (32), Oggu Karnakar (42), Kamalla Shiva Kumar (33) and Aleti Nagaraju (32), hailing from various mandals across Jangaon, Yadadri, and Nalgonda districts.
According to sources, the racket primarily targeted agricultural land transactions, with operators collecting full payments in cash deploying hacking tools such as Burp Suite to alter data during challan generation. In some cases, barely 1 or 2 percent of the actual amount was credited to the treasury. In a glaring instance, a payment of ₹1.26 lakh resulted in just ₹1,261 being deposited.
While early detections were in Jangaon, where ₹8.55 lakh was reportedly siphoned off in a single day, the scam’s tentacles have spread to Yadadri Bhuvanagiri, Rangareddy, Nalgonda, Siddipet and possibly beyond. More than 1,200 documents have been recovered so far, and one accused is alleged to have misappropriated as much as ₹11 crore who splurging it on a lavish lifestyle.
(Edited by Amit Vasudev)
