Hyderabad: The Telangana government has kept the revision of land registration value on hold for two years to avoid paying higher compensation for land acquisition. With this, the gap between registration value and market value has been widening.
The government needs to acquire several expensive land parcels in the city in Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills etc to build skywalks, flyovers, multi-level grade separators etc. While the market value in these areas is over Rs 1 lakh per square yard, the government registration value is just Rs 40,000. It needs to acquire lakhs of acres for irrigation projects and Pharma City.
The government has to pay four times the registration value to owners as compensation under Land Acqui-sition Act, 2013. The last revision was done in undivided AP in 2013 and as per norms revision as to be made every year in urban areas and every two years in rural areas.
The government rejected hike proposals again this year to avoid paying higher compensation because any increase would not fetch more than 30 per cent additional revenue for state but would end up paying more towards compensation to land owners.
Though the Telangana government brought its own land acquisition policy (GO 123) and started acquiring land for irrigation projects, it has been encountering stiff resistance from land owners, especially farmers.
The land acquisition for Mallannasagar has hit a roadblock due to protests by farmers against GO 123 forcing Chief Minister, K. Cha-ndrasekhar Rao to offer compensation as per Centre's act.
Similar protests are being witnessed for the 12,000 acre-land acquisition for Pharma City on city outskirts and around two lakh acres for irrigation projects across the state.
At this juncture, if land registration values are revised, it would impose heavy financial burden on government as higher value would mean higher compensation.
“The land value revision was due for 2014. At that time, it was stopped because Telan-gana was a newly formed state. In 2015, we have again submitted hike up to 30 to 50 per cent area-wise and even uploaded all these details on website. But the government went back at the last minute. This year too, there has been no response from government,” said a senior revenue official.
Senior revenue officials have been asked to keep them on hold since the government is planning to acquire costly lands in GHMC limits and lakhs of acres in rural areas for irrigation projects.
