Hyderabad: Officials from Ranga Reddy and Hyderabad districts have been carefully scrutinising applications received under the land regularisation scheme (GO 59) since last month, when several incidents of violation of the GO came to light.
After field-level visits, officials have been finalising the list of beneficiaries.
Nearly 16,000 applications were received from both the districts, of which 11,855 are from Ranga Reddy district.
Officials are finalising a list of about 728 applications and about 5,200 are being re-verified. The GO 58 was meant for regularising houses constructed illegally on government lands below 125 square yards free of cost; GO 59 was for regularising houses constructed illegally on more than 125 square yards by collecting market value from the applicants.
Hyderabad joint collector Bharati Hollikeri told this newspaper that as many as 66,000 applications had been received under GO-58 and after scrutinising them, around 12,000 were found eligible.
The pattas distribution process is being continued. “Most of the applicants had constructed houses illegally on forest and other department lands. We have also considered applications with NOCs from concerned departments apart from constructions on government and assigned lands,” she said.
About GO-59, she said, “We have received nearly 4,600 applications and 900 were converted from GO58 to GO 59. Selection process of beneficiaries will continue till the end of this month. So far, nearly 500 eligible applications have been identified,” she said.
After the Quthbullapur incident came to light, wherein local officials sanctioned pattas to open lands instead of houses, Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy district officials are scrutinising the applications with extra care and are visiting the applicants’ houses for physical verification.
In Ranga Reddy district, about 11,855 applications have been received under GO 59 and so far officials have finalised about 5,230 beneficiaries. But, about 728 who paid the proper amount as per the GO to the government, will benefit.
A source from Ranga Reddy district revenue office told this newspaper that 2,678 applications had been rejected as the constructions were located under other departments’ lands.
“However, officials have been considering 1,114 applications for re-verification. The revenue target was Rs 120.62 crore through GO 59 and so far Rs 91.2 crore has been collected,” the source said.
Files linked to 165 pattas go missing
In January, Ranga Reddy Revenue officials identified 165 land pattas that had been sanctioned under GO 59 in violation to the rules.
Responding to several complaints against the regularisations at survey numbers 131 and 240 in Bahadurpally village under Quthbul-lapur mandal, Ranga Reddy district collector M. Raghunandan Rao had directed joint collector-1 Rajit Kumar Saini to investigate the matter.
During the course of investigation, revenue officials found that 165 pattas had been issued against rules and no constructions were found on the said land.
An official source from the revenue department told this newspaper that during their field visit they found that all the applications relating to these 165 pattas submitted under GO 59 were missing from the Quthbul-lapur tahsildar’s office.
“We were unable to question the fake beneficiaries as we did not find any application. We will write to the government to cancel the 165 pattas,” the source said.
Officials, who sorted through 261 pattas issued last month found that 165 files were missing, all relating to open lands at said survey numbers and no structures were found there.
Sources said that some officials had collected Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh for issuing pattas for the open land. Each fake beneficiary got about 125 square yards of land and the cumulative government land was identified as 6 acre.
Since this incident, officials are carefully scrutinising all the applications received under GO 59 in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts.
