460 villages go ‘missing’ from state ahead of Census 2021

Hyderabad: Even as plans are afoot for Census 2021, 460 villages in Telangana have gone missing. The missing villages were identified by the Union ministry of home affairs and Directorate of Census for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh during the pre-Census exercise.
These villages are part of 14 newly-created districts (out of 33) which were carved out in October 2016 when the TRS government rejigged the district map of Telangana.
The directorate has now sent a missive to the Telangana government on the missing villages and sought a clarification. The villages that went missing are located in the erstwhile Adilabad, Khammam, Warangal, Karimnagar, Rangareddy, Mahbubnagar and Medak districts. Mahbubnagar and Rangareddy districts have the maximum number of missing villages. Names of two towns — Gadwal and Wanaparthy — are also missing.
Surprisingly, these villages in 58 mandals have been receiving various benefits from the government. “But technically they cannot be treated as revenue villages since their names don’t exist in the GOs issued by the government,” a senior official explained.
Sources said the Centre and the directorate came across this discrepancy when they were going through the 2011 Census data. The authorities were in for another shock when they came across names of 36 villages which did not exist in the Census 2011.
Admitting that there were lapses on the part of officials during the reorganisation exercise, a top revenue official said chief secretary SK Joshi had issued orders to collectors of 32 districts (except Hyderabad) to collate the village registry details with the Census 2011 data and send a report to the chief commissioner of land administration (CCLA) office for getting the missing names included in the list.
Senior officials blamed district revenue officers for omitting the names owing to confusion over contours of mandal and village borders. “The missing names have been mainly found in the reorganised mandals,” a senior official pointed out.
A senior official in the rank of a joint secretary in the revenue department told TOI: “One mandal has been divided into three mandals in legislative assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy’s constituency of Banswada. Similarly, names of some villages have been deleted owing to confusion.” He said some villages got mentioned twice in the list.
When contacted, CCLA secretary K Hymavathi said the government had asked the collectors to send reports on the missing villages by July-end. But only some collectors have sent the reports. “We will get a clear picture on the missing villages after getting reports from all the districts,” she added.
In February this year, Mulugu and Narayanpet became 32nd and 33rd districts in India’s youngest state. The TRS government had earlier carved out 21 more districts in October 2016 from the existing 10 when Telangana state came into being on June 2, 2014.