Hyderabad: Middlemen eat into Land Regularisation Scheme fee pie

Hyderabad: The Land Regularisation Scheme has been abused by middlemen who pass off as consultants in connivance with officials of the HMDA.

HMDA officials have been accepting applications for regularisation without the mandatory details, including names, and land documents.

The HMDA has received LRS fee of Rs 10,000 for 4,000 applications without addresses. After submitting the applications, the middlemen demand up to Rs 2 lakh from those who have not applied for LRS in time to insert their details into the approved application forms.  HMDA officials are not supposed to accept the fee from applicants in cases where all this prescribed information is not provided.

Sources said that the middlemen have been forging certain certificates, which have to to be signed either by the official concerned or the HMDA commissioner in order to approve the LRS application. 

Several citizens have been cheated into thinking their lands have been cleared under the scheme  and have even gone ahead and built structures on them. When they approached the HMDA office, they were shocked to learn that they had unknowingly purchased fake proceeding documents from the middlemen.

A senior official said he was surprised to learn about it. He said that HMDA would reject all 4,000 address-less LRS applications and initiate criminal action against persons who submitted them. Asked about the fake proceeding certificates, he requested applicants not to fall into the trap of fake consultants and instead ask for the LRS number in order to check HMDA's official website. 

HMDA rejects 80K LRS applications

The HMDA has rejected 80,000 applications for the Land Regularisation Scheme (LRS). However, it has approved 83,065 applications submitted under the scheme. 

According to the HMDA, it received 1,61,486 LRS applications in 2015, and there were 13,990 pending applications from 2008. 

Of these HMDA approved 74,745 of the new applications and 8,320 of the old ones. It rejected 80,000 applications. both new and old. 

In all, 1,984 new and 258 old applications lack documents. About 9,170 new and 1,472 applications are under process of approval.