LRS Moving at Snail’s Pace Despite CM’s Directives

Hyderabad: The implementation of the layout regularisation scheme (LRS) has been moving at a sluggish pace, despite repeated directives from Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and revenue minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy to expedite the process.

The scheme, pending for four years since its introduction by the BRS government in October 2020, is seeing little progress on the ground, leaving lakhs of plot owners in a state of uncertainty.

The LRS was launched to provide relief to buyers of plots in unauthorised layouts. It aimed to regularise these plots, making them eligible for legal transactions and enabling owners to obtain building permissions. The response to the scheme was overwhelming with the state government receiving 25.67 lakh applications. Of these, 25.53 lakh applications pertained to unauthorised plots and 13 lakh unauthorised layouts.

Out of the total applications, 10.54 lakh came from municipalities, 10.76 lakh from gram panchayats, and the remainder from municipal corporations. The government entrusted district collectors with the responsibility of processing the applications while also ensuring protection of government lands.

The BRS government collected Rs 250 crore from applicants as fees — ranging from Rs 1,000 for smaller plots to Rs 10,000 for the larger ones — but halted the process soon thereafter, citing legal complications. Withholding the process for four years has created significant challenges for plot owners, many of whom are unable to sell their land. Additionally, those seeking to build homes are unable to secure building permissions due to the unauthorised status of their plots or layouts.

When the Congress came to power in December 2023, Revanth Reddy made the completion of the LRS a priority. A month later, he convened a meeting with officials, urging them to accelerate the scheme’s implementation. However, the process faced further delays due to the Lok Sabha elections and the enforcement of the election code, which stalled progress until June.

Since June, both Revanth Reddy and Srinivas Reddy have conducted numerous review meetings, urging district collectors to speed up the process. Chief Secretary A. Santhi Kumari also held multiple video and teleconferences with collectors.

According to data from the revenue department, only 4.9 lakh applications have been processed so far, with just 80,000 applications cleared.

Sources within the revenue department indicate that officials are attributing the delays to incomplete documentation from applicants. Initially, when applications were accepted in 2020, there was no requirement to upload supporting documents such as layout copies or sale deeds. The current Congress government has made submission of these documents mandatory.

Plot owners are now being asked to log on to the LRS website and upload the necessary documents, which officials must then verify through field inspections. This additional step is contributing to the delays in the scheme’s implementation.

The delay has resulted in widespread frustration among plot owners, many of whom are facing financial and personal hardships due to the inability to sell or develop their land. Despite directives from the Chief Minister and revenue minister, the lack of substantial progress on the ground raises concerns about the timeline for the scheme’s completion.