Hyderabad: The apathy of the State Wakf Board has cost it about Rs 400 crore in compensation from the GHMC.
The corporation has been acquiring Wakf lands for road widening and other things since many years but has hardly paid any compensation. Sources said that the claims of compensation have been pending for two decades and none of the officers of the Board has bothered to recover it from the civic body, apart from sending out reminders.
Citing an example of a property located in Begumpet where the City Police Commissioner’s Task Force Office was housed earlier, sources said parts of the property were acquired in 1999 and 2006 for road widening and recently for a third time for Metro Rail.
The Board got Rs 27 lakh as compensation for the land acquired for Metro Rail. Compensation claims for land acquired on the earlier two occasions are still pending with the GHMC.
Several properties belonging to the Wakf Board in the Afzalgunj-Yerragadda stretch were acquired by the GHMC for road widening, including the maqbara of Faqrul Mulk at Ameerpet, and for Metro Rail.
Compensation of Rs 1,85 crore was deposited to the Board for only one property and also in the name of a self-styled mutawalli. Former Board member Altaf Hyder Rizvi said that 650 cases of compensation were pending with the GHMC.
When contacted Mr Asadullah, CEO of the Wakf Board, said that in many of the cases, the GHMC had acquired Wakf land without notice to the Board, which was illegal.
When the Board and the special secretary of the minority welfare department brought this to the notice of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, he instructed the GHMC to sort out the issue and pay compensation.
The GHMC informed the Board that it had paid compensation in some of the cases to mutawallis to which the Board objected; mutawallis were caretakers of properties and the Board owned the property.
The GHMC had also claimed that some properties were acquired by invoking Sections 145 and 146 of the GHMC Act which empower the corporation to acquire properties with mutual consent of the property owners, Mr Rizvi added.
He said, “In such cases too, notice and written mutual consent are mandated and that is why we sought the GHMC to furnish copies of notices and mutual consent letters to the Board. We are yet to receive the copies; after receiving them the Board will represent to the government for recovery of compensation.”
