HYDERABAD: A survey conducted by the Ranga Reddy district administration has revealed that 17,513 acres of government land has been encroached upon by individuals and institutions. Loss to the tax-payer? Rs 2.5 lakh crore.Most of this is prime land on the fringe of Hyderabad. Squatter colonies have come on these lands right under the nose of the administration, especially in the mandals surrounding Hyderabad, such as Qutubullapur, Uppal and Jawahar Nagar.Records show that the government owns about 5,53,135 acres of land in Ranga Reddy district. A third of this is in the possession of squatters. Squatters have taken over 1,941 acres in Shamirpet, 1,072 acres in Saroornagar, 989 acres in Hayatnagar and 1,654 acres in Moinabad, all mandals bordering Hyderabad. About 13,145 acres of the usurped land is farmland and 4,368 acres non-agricultural. According to special grade deputy collector (land protection) S Prabhakar Reddy, much of the encroached farmland has been turned to residential use, sold to gullible buyers by realtors. In many layouts, the land sharks have changed the survey numbers or assigned private patta land survey numbers to government land, as in the case of Shamshiguda village in Balanagar mandal.The market rate of land in Ranga Reddy district is about Rs 10-16 crore per acre. In some areas it is as high as Rs 20 crore per acre. “Most of the land sharks are supporters of local politicians and whenever we go to remove the encroachements, we are threatened,” Prabhakar Reddy said. The district administration recently conducted a meeting with mandal revenue officers (MROs), and land protection officers and set up a team to curb the encroachments but it is anybody’s guess how effective it would be.
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