State Tops In Keeping Podu Applications Pending: Centre

Hyderabad: Telangana has the third-highest forest land area under podu pattas or 7.29 lakh acres. However, behind this status lies an unspoken fact of the state being the topper in India in the number of podu patta claims that have been kept ‘pending’.

According to data provided to the Lok Sabha on claims under the Forest Rights Act, under which certain categories of forest dwellers could stake a claim and receive rights to use the forest land for their sustenance, Telangana has a whopping 3,29,367 podu claims under the pending category as on December 31, 2025. This is nearly half of the total 6,55,249 claims Telangana government received, also as of the same date, according to the Union tribal welfare ministry.

While the filing of claims is not a continuous process — the last round of podu claims was organised during the previous BRS regime in Telangana, which saw a rush of fresh claims in 2021 with pattas being issued in 2023 — as per the ministry, the Forest Rights Act and its rules do not prescribe any time limit for disposal of applications.

Forest officials in the state say that the tribal welfare department takes shelter under this leeway, even as the tribal welfare department, the agency for actually proving legitimacy of occupation of forest land before a patta can be issued, refuses to take final decision on the pending claims leaving the applicants, who are seen as encroachers of forest land, to continue occupying forest parcels illegally.

Of the total 2,31,456 claims that were approved as of December 31, 2025 in the two cycles of issuing pattas — first in 2008 after the Forest Rights Act came into being that set December 31, 2005 as the cut-off date for occupation, and again in 2023 when the state government, using the same cut-off date, called for fresh applications — 1,51,146 claims were those that got the nod in the second tranche.

At last count, two years ago, the total encroached forest area — including area for which pattas were given during the first round in 2008 — was 7,29,654 acres, but as per the total claims that were received including those called for on 2021, a whopping 13,18,507 acres were found under encroachment as this was the extent of forest land claimed in all by the total applicants. This raises the prospect that at least 5.88 lakh acres of forest area are technically under illegal occupation, with the forest department unable to evict the encroachers, and the tribal welfare department reluctant to either reject or approve the pending claims.

It may be recalled that the issuing of podu pattas in 2023 was also embroiled in several controversies, with one related to forest officials in the districts being told to send facsimiles of signatures for printing the same on the podu patta passbooks.

This directive was issued following reluctance by several officials to approve the claims they found to be suspicious, or not genuine, or were related to fresh, rushed encroachments after the government called for fresh applications.

The issue had also reached the Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court, which, in October of 2025, issued notices to the tribal welfare department seeking claimant-wise application data, which was yet to be submitted to the CEC as on February 12, 2026, according to sources.