The Times of India                    15.02.2013

Over 75,000 regularisation applications rejected

HYDERABAD: Over 75,000 applications pertaining to regularisation of encroached government land have been rejected by the Rangareddy district administration
as applicants failed to submit proper proof (establish that they have
been in possession of the land before 2003) and some even produced fake
documents.

Since these applications were rejected, the district
administration has powers to declare them as land grabbers and reclaim
government land at any time. However, the district revenue officials
have been waiting for the government instruction on rejected
applications. Sources said the revenue department held a review meeting
on the regularisation scheme recently and orders are likely to be issued
on the fate of rejected applications by February-end.

The
state government had issued GO 166 in 2008 to regularise encroached
government land and the scheme concluded in September the same year. It
was decided to regularise the encroached land by collecting penal amount in cases where the land was occupied prior to 2003.

As many as 90,677 people applied for regularisation in the district. Of
them 72,985 applicants were from surrounding mandals like
Serilingampally, Uppal, Balanagar, Hayathnagar, Qutubullapur,
Saroornagar, Rajendrangar and Keesara mandals in Greater Hyderabad and
another 17,692 applications were from the RR district rural areas like
Vikarabad and Tandur. The RR district administration received the
highest number of applications, 23,900 from Qutubullapur, 18,000 from
Serilingampally and 11,000 from Balanagar mandals.

Officials
said as per the instructions land regularisation up to 80 square yards
was done without collecting any penal amount, while for plots between 81
sq yards and 2,000 sq yards were cleared by collecting penal amount.

A district-level committee headed by the collector clears the
applications for land up to 250 sq yds, chief commissioner of land
administration (CCLA) disposes of the applications for land between 251
sq yards and 500 sq yards. Above 500 sq yards and up to 2,000 sq yards
cases would be cleared by the state government.

Of all the
cases, so far 7,336 cases (covering 155 acres) were regularised and
75,549 applications were rejected. Another 4,205 cases were kept in
abeyance due to court cases. The CCLA had approved 994 cases of 1,012
submitted and 351 cases were sent to the state government.

Official sources said field verification by the revenue staff revealed
that many people occupied land after 2003 and in some cases after the GO
166 was issued. Some people even sold residential certificates for Rs
10,000 which was found to be fabricated.

When contacted, RR
district district revenue officer K Ramulu said the district
administration has cleared applications pending with the district
committee. Some cases have to be cleared by the state government. “So
far, the regularisation scheme fetched about Rs 17 crore and we are
expecting another Rs 32 crore from eligible applications,” he added.