Hyderabad, June 10 -- Palle Venkataiah, 65, a landless Dalit from the Madiga community, is one of six such families in Salaarnagar, a quiet hamlet in Gandeed mandal on the border of Mahabubnagar and Vikarabad districts. But Venkataiah wasn't born landless.

The small piece of land his ancestors passed down to his father was fraudulently registered in the name of a powerful man from their own community when Venkataiah was a child. Today, he shows no interest in the Dharani portal or the newly launched Bhu Bharati land survey scheme, as he believes there's no chance of reclaiming what was lost.

"They will ask me to show some documents. We never had any, though we were tilling the land for generations," Venkataiah said, when asked why he ha...