The Telangana government, on September 18, announced the constitution of a high-level committee to address land disputes involving section 22A of the Registration Act (1908) and to expedite pending cases.
The move comes two days after Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy's promise in the Assembly to look into concerns. The announcement was made by Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy during the September 18 Assembly session.
A three-member panel will be headed by Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA) DS Lokesh Kumar. Law Secretary B Papi Reddy and Inspector General of Registration and Stamps Rajiv Gandhi Hanumanthu will be its members. The committee has been asked to examine cases involving properties on the prohibited list and work towards resolving the identified issues within a month.
The government has also begun implementing measures announced under the CM’s 12-point action plan on land-related matters.
Section 22A of the Registration Act gives the state government the power to put certain lands (like government, assigned, forest and waqf lands) on a prohibited list. During past land record updates, alleged administrative and mapping errors wrongly placed thousands of acres of genuine private patta lands and entire residential colonies into the 22A prohibited list.
While the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has accused the state government of manufacturing or failing to fix these issues in a bid for personal monetary gain and kickbacks, the state government claims the vast majority of the 98+ lakh restricted acres are public, forest, and endowment assets, with only a few lakh acres tied to private disputes.
In the LB Nagar area, authorities have been directed to dispose of applications submitted under GO Ms No 118 within a month. Nearly 9,800 applications have been submitted in the constituency. The process is subject to court orders wherever applicable.
Regularisation is scheduled to begin on September 19. Eligible properties are to be removed from the Section 22A prohibited list after the process is completed.
The government is also preparing to address registration issues involving layouts and colonies that received approvals from agencies such as the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA), Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and Directorate of Town & Country Planning (DTCP) but were subsequently affected by their inclusion in the Section 22A list. Officials are expected to take a decision on such cases shortly.
Another major issue concerns residential properties in the Singareni coal belt. Registrations in several areas have remained stalled despite GO 76, providing for regularisation of house sites. Telangana Deputy CM Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka has been tasked with consulting legislators from the coal belt to work out a solution.
The broader 12-point programme covers several other categories, including Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) or ULC land regularisation, houses constructed on assigned or government land, properties awaiting nala conversion, unauthorised layouts on government land, leasehold-to-freehold conversion in Secunderabad, and assignment or Bhoodan lands.