Hyderabad: The ongoing land survey and updating of revenue records has exposed large-scale conversion of agricultural land into non-agricultural land without seeking approvals across the state. This has led to diminished agriculture land in villages adjacent to urban areas.
Agriculture lands in major gram panchayats, too, are shrinking as they are swallowed up by real estate and commercial ventures. They continue to be listed as agriculture lands in revenue records, and owners continue to seek crop loans on this basis.
Updating the land survey and records commenced across the state on September 15, and will go on for three months, till December-end.
A major disastrous outfall of this illegal conversion of land use is the threat to food security that it poses, and the possibility that Telangana state will become dependent on other states for foodgrains and vegetables.
On the first day of the exercise, revenue officials and staff began visiting every village household and handing over photo copies of Form 1(B), which shows who owns agriculture land. Land owners were asked to state whether they still owned the land and were cultivating it.
Many owners claimed they used the land for agriculture but ground-level verification showed that residential and commercial ventures had come up there.
Large swathes of agricultural land in villages abutting the Hyderabad-Warangal and Hyderabad-Bengaluru highways have been converted into non-agricultural land for realty projects but still continue to be in the list of agricultural land.
Huge agriculture land conversion was noticed in Ranga Reddy, Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda and Khammam districts. The agriculture lands abutting highways and roads passing from Hyderabad to these districts have turned into non-agriculture lands.
Deputy Chief Minister and revenue minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali said no one was aware of conversion of land of this magnitude as no survey has been done since the 1930s. “This is the result of six decades of misrule of governments in undivided AP. The preliminary findings are shocking. We are waiting for the outcome of the entire survey of 100 days. If this had not been detected, it could have resulted in huge loss to the state exchequer,” he said. Since these continue to be agriculture lands in government records, land owners could have availed of the Rs 8,000 per acre per year financial assistance given by the state government, he said.
