Hyderabad: The Telangana government which is tryng to woo industrialists by offering sops, particularly land, is now busy assessing the free land it has, especially in and around Greater Hyderabad. Soon after the government was formed on June 2, industrialists from IT and manufacturing sectors met the ministers and sought land either to expand their companies or to establish new ones.
Subsequently, the Ranga Reddy district and Hyderabad administration got busy reviewing land allotments made to public and private institutions including APIIC, AP Housing Board, HMDA and others. Special focus was also on unused and inappropriate usage of allotted lands.
According to official sources, in the last 10 years, the revenue department had allotted 35,510 acres to government and private institutions in Ranga Reddy district. Of the total, 27,340 acres were used by the allottees for the purpose the land was allotted. Around 7,370 acres were identified as “unutilised.”
“The Ranga Reddy administration has started reclaiming unutilised land from institutions, departments and individuals. The district administration has also written to the chief commissioner of land administration to take back the 885 acres allocated to the Deccan Infrastructure and Land Holdings Limited, APIIC (2,163 acres), HMDA (1,696 acres) and 761 acres from other government departments. Officials also requested CCLA to take back 35 acres allotted to private individuals,” said an official at the RR district collectorate (legal wing).
Between 2005 and 2010, the above institution either sold or handed over lands worth around Rs 5,000 crore in the city’s peripheral areas like Gachibolwi, Kokapet, Shamshabad and in Jubilee Hills to fund government projects, said the official.
Earlier, before the division of the state, TRS had fiercely opposed the auction of land parcels and allotments made by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastruc-ture Corporation (API-IC), Hyderabad Urban Development Authority and the Andhra Pradesh Housing Board apart from land allotments to private companies in Ranga Reddy district.
The present IT minister of Telangana, K.T. Rama Rao had even staged a dharna at the HMDA office in July 2012 demanding that the authority stop land auctions. He demanded that all allotments and auctions should be scrutinised.
The party also opposed the sale of 4.6 acres of prime land at Nandagiri Hills in Jubilee Hills to an aide of then chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, claiming that the land was being sold at a throwaway price. Similarly, the TRS had opposed land allotments to DLF at Kukatpally and Padmalaya Studio at Jubilee Hills.
