Aadhaar-patta link plan gives jitters to landlords

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s warning on benami properties is giving everyone the jitters, especially  landowners, who are refusing to link their land records with Aadhaar despite repeated reminders. The revenue department, as part of the recent land records purification drive, linked all land records with the Aadhaar of owners. In the process, it identified properties, which are not linked to Aadhaar and owners who are not coming forward for linkage. The department submitted the details of such properties to the government. The Chief Minister on Friday warned that all such properties will be treated as benami properties and the government will confiscate those properties with the help of the I-T department.

Interestingly, all such properties are located in areas surrounding Hyderabad which command huge real estate value raising suspicion that they are held by bigwigs such as politicians, IAS/ IPS officials, Central/state government employees, who did not disclose either in their election affidavits or annual property returns. The revenue survey teams who were assigned the task of purifying land records in 100 days across the state from September 15 to December 31, 2017, visited these land parcels several times to link land details with Aadhaar, in vain.

Those present on such land sites did not cooperate with revenue staff, nor did they disclose  any details of the owners and sent back officials saying that the owners were abroad or out of station. With this, the revenue department took this issue to the notice of the CM, who sought a report on ‘Aadhaar linking’ across the state. The CM was shocked to find the majority of land parcels surrounding Hyderabad were not linked with Aadhaar, while in other districts it was more than 90 per cent. Hyderabad is surrounded by costly lands located on city outskirts, which fall under the jurisdiction of Ranga Reddy, Vikarabad, Siddipet, Medak, Sangareddy, Medchal and Yadadri districts.

Interestingly, all these districts witnessed land-Aadhaar linkage of just 38  to 63 per cent. The lowest linkage was witnessed in Vikarabad district at just 38 per cent, which was followed by Medchal district at 39 per cent, Sanga Reddy 41 per cent, Siddipet 43 per cent, Yadadri 53 per cent, Medak 58 per cent and Ranga Reddy 63 per cent. Revenue officials suspect that these lands were amassed by politicians, top officials, businessmen, government employees etc, who fear getting caught now if they are linked with Aadhaar and for this reason they are avoiding Aadhaar linkage despite repeated reminders. However, the strict warning given by the CM that such properties would be treated as 'benami' and confiscated by the  government would now force such owners to come out with details on land ownership and source of income for purchase.