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Telangana: State reclaims its lands, owners are left in the lurch

Third parties sold land that was not regularised using fake layouts

Hyderabad: Thousands of families who had bought plots and built houses in the city are in a fix with the Telangana government putting up boards proclaiming the land as public property.

These are the lands that have been taken by the government under Urban Land Ceiling.

The Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, aimed to prevent concentration of lands in the hands of few people, has set a limit of 1,500 sq.mt. of land for individuals in Hyderabad.

However, the patta holders (holding several acres of land) sold the excess land to third parties, who in turn made fake layouts and sold it to individual buyers over the years in the form of plots.

In Shaikpet Mandal alone, several such houses have come up in over one lakh square yards in Jai Hind Colony, Vinayak Nagar, Alamira and other colonies. In Vinobha Nagar, which is completely government land, over 1,500 houses have been constructed.

Mr Ali Ahamed, who bought a piece of land in Gulshan Colony, Shaikpet, said, “I bought the land here since it is close to Gachibowli, my place of work. I saw the owner’s papers where he had paid a certain amount of money to the government under regularization, and started the construction. But earlier this month, officials came and put up this notice.”

Mr T. Chandrakala, Mandal Revenue Officer (MRO), Shaikpet Mandal, said, “Presently, such notice boards reclaiming the public land has been set up in both public land and also land under the ULC where constructions are under way, and also in open lands. Certain lands, that have not been regularised, even if original documents are present, can be regularised with the special officer of Urban Land Ceiling.”

Mr M.A. Khadeer Sidd-iqui, president of Gulshan Colony Welfare Associa-tion,“Several houses have come up in the area, of which some are completely on government land and some on land that needs to be regularised. But though several house owners have applied for regularisation under ULC, regularisation has not been taken up as they do not have proper link documents or are not able to pay for the plot. Rs 13,600 per sq. meter is being charged for the regularisation of the land.

( Source : dc correspondent )
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