Hyderabad: The TS government is maintaining silence over the report on land grabbing cases in and around Hyderabad city and has not taken any action on it. The report submitted by the Task Force was headed by retired IAS officer S.K. Sinha .
In 2014 after coming to power, the TRS government constituted a task force under the chairmanship of Mr Sinha on December 5 and asked it to submit the report on land grabbing in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas within two years.
According to officials, about 5,000 acres of land was identified as having been encroached on — mainly plots belonging to the government, freedom fighters and Bhoodan land by individuals and some housing societies.
The Sinha committee investigated about nine cases where valuable pieces of land were grabbed. The committee submitted 11 reports to the government, recommending action against officers and some individuals involved in land grabbing. The committee went through thousands of records and traced the role of government officials conniving in land grabbing at several places.
According to the Sinha committee, the officials involved in land grabbing cases work in the government at various levels, even currently. The committee has recommended action against some officials, prosecution against some others and filing of criminal cases against some officials. In some cases, the committee found that important files had gone missing. The committee recommended the government to take back possession of government land from encroachers and initiate action against them.
Among all cases investigated by the Sinha committee, a very important case pertains to grabbing of 1,289 acres of government and patta land in Tellapur, Ameenpur, Patancheru, and Kollur villages of Ramachandrapuram and Patancheru mandals. The grabbed land here was converted into housing sites.
The committee found that real estate firm encroached the lands, forged documents in connivance with revenue officials and sold it to about 10,000 persons working in BHEL and other industries.
The committee in its report said, “This is an important case involving more 1,000 acres of land where vast chunks of land had been converted into a layout meant for house sites for industrial workers.”
