Waqf Board Seeks More Time to Upload Waqf Property Details

Hyderabad:The Telangana Waqf Board will shortly file a petition before the State Waqf Tribunal seeking an extension of the December 6 deadline to upload property details on the Umeed portal.

This move comes in view of the Supreme Court’s refusal to pass orders to extend the deadline for uploading property details and asked the applicants to approach the Waqf Tribunal for extension on Monday.

One among various reasons for the delay in registration is attributed to absence of Waqf Board CEO for two months. In addition, the portal had issues with respect to the State details. It was rectified only after raising the issue with officials concerned on October 6.

Around 3,800 mutawallis, who are the permanent makers, can individually file the petitions seeking extension. For the rest of the 31,000 properties the Waqf Board is the maker.

Further, there are 85,000 Waqf-by-user properties for which the Board is responsible as checker and maker. Around 13,000 second survey land also fall under Board. Hence, the Board decided to file an extension petition.

Another reason for the delay has been the slow process of uploading. Mentioning that 20 minutes is being consumed for a single column to upload, the IT officials said each IT personnel is able to upload only 8-10 entries per day.

Similar is the difficulties of Waqf properties’ custodians who are facing server glitches and other issues such as selecting districts and mandals on the portal, and lack of documents.

Waqf Board member Akbar Nizammuddin said the CEO will file a petition on December 6 seeking a six months extension considering the difficulties faced during the registrations.

Extending the deadline is not an individual issue as Telangana was not recognised in the application. Moreover, the absence of CEO and not being able to assign duties of checkers caused a delay in the uploading process, said Waqf Board member Abul Fateh Syed Bandagi Badesha Quadri.

“If the Central Waqf Act has to be implemented properly, with proper information of the properties uploaded, then the Central government should extend the deadline across the country,” he said.

There are 33,929 institutions under the Telangana Waqf Board and around 24,000 are registered. One of the major hurdles for registration is lack of documents such as gazette notifications, muntaqab, survey records and plans.

The managements are trying to get the complete Waqf records from the Board and other departments, which is time consuming and December 6 will not suffice, said Md.Habeebuddin, a Waqf activist.