HYDERABAD: Total land equivalent to 1,000 times the area of Greater Hyderabad has been placed under the ‘prohibited list’ on the Dharani web land portal.
With 16 lakh acres of land in Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority districts such as Rangareddy, Medchal Malkajgiri and Sangareddy lying idle thanks to the Dharani prohibited list, urban planners and experts expressed concern over one of the major economic resources going waste.
Though the state government had launched the land portal Dharani three years ago, pattadar passbooks have not been issued for 18 lakh acres. Many genuine pattadars and owners have been running from pillar to post to get their land out of prohibited list since it cannot be sold or bought.
Ryots run from pillar to post
After scores of farmers raised a hue and cry, the revenue department removed about 2.5 lakh acres from the prohibited list a year ago after clearances from district collectors.
Thadakamalla Sharath of Suryapet district is one such agriculturist, who has been requesting the authorities to correct errors in the revenue records pertaining to his seven-acre farmland in Yellaram village, but in vain.
Even small plot owners are making rounds to offices to get the mistakes rectified. S Chalama Raju of Medchal has been urging the government to remove his 200 square yard plot in the town from prohibited list, which was categorised as ‘endowment land’ owing to revenue authorities’ wrong entry.
The previous BRS government had claimed that as many as 85 villages falling under the purview of GO 111 were underdeveloped owing to restrictions. The KCR regime later scrapped the GO 111.
Realty growth hit in Hyd
“The government should have resolved grievances of Dharani first as certain land pockets in the state could not be developed and the government is losing out on registration charges, development charges, building fees and other taxes,” an urban planner said.
GV Rao, president of Telangana Developers Association, said owing to the mess Dharani had created, real estate development has come to a halt in Hyderabad and surrounding areas. “Dharani was ill conceived and administered with discretion. To keep certain properties in prohibition list is a direct infringement on legal and fundamental rights of the people,” he said.
Cong govt must resolve issues
Many of those facing Dharani problems said the Congress government should resolve their issues immediately. Of 2.3 lakh applications pending with chief commissioner of land administration (CCLA), a majority of them pertain to prohibited land and properties for the last three years.
“If one or two acres of a survey number is government, waqf or endowments land or is in legal dispute, the entire survey number which has 50 to 100 acres is prohibited and blocked for transactions. The owners will have to apply individually and move heaven and earth to prove that it is not a government land or not involved in a legal tangle,” advocate Gummi Rajkumar Reddy, who has been fighting on Dharani glitches in the past two years, told TOI.
Reddy said some of the major issues associated with Dharani include pattadar passbooks not being issued for property categorised in part ‘B’ (disputed) land, lack of provision for land extent correction, land classification correction, etc.
‘BRS govt took no action’
The previous government had asked people to send grievances to resolve Dharani glitches, but could clear only 10% of the applications filed. CCLA has developed 35 modules for corrections on Dharani, but could not solve many problems.
B Sunil Kumar, advocate and land laws expert, who has been made one of the members in Dharani committee, listed out 46 problems in the portal. He had brought these issues to the notice of the former BRS government but no action was taken.
“The major issues are patta land marked as assigned, government, ceiling, endowments or waqf land. If a person loses land in acquisition, the etire survey number is put in prohibited list though it’s not connected with the acquisition. Agriculture land classified as house or patta land being put in notional khata. Land transactions that happened before Dharani were showing old owners’ names. One owner was given two passbooks or passbooks were not issued to Sada Bainama land,” Sunil told TOI.
