If they miss the deadline, thousands of properties, some of which are centuries old, could slip into the digital void.
That fear hangs heavy outside Hyderabad’s central mosque, where small groups of men wait in silence, files pressed to their chests. Some hold rolled-up notices and title deeds, while others carry electricity bills, tax documents or fragile photocopies salvaged from aging registers. Every scrap of paper matters. A few hundred meters from the mosque, across a busy road, the first queue mirrors the next. On a dedicated floor in a government office, young men with sunken eyes and parched lips – the evident effects of fasting – tirelessly type on notebooks. Any document that can establish a property as a waqf must be uploaded to the UMEED Waqf portal before the time expires.
The urgency is unmistakable, the anxiety visible. The first deadline has already passed. With barely a fortnight to go until the next one, March 12, the scale of the task is staggering.
Launched on promises of reform, the UMEED (Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development) portal was unveiled last June by Union Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju as a system that would “not only bring transparency but also help ordinary Muslims, especially women and children”. Conceived as a centralized digital platform, it seeks to record, verify and monitor waqf properties in real-time, offering geo-tagged inventories, GIS integration, transparent lease records, an online grievance redressal system and public access to verified data.
In Telangana, however, the ground reality began to unfold within days of the exercise. It was necessary to identify thousands of waqf properties, trace, collect and digitize their papers, often from fragmented, incomplete or disputed records, within a fixed time frame. Mistrust of intent, ignorance of digital practices, confusion over technical issues, and legal uncertainty combined to slow down the process, even as the clock kept ticking.
Things got further complicated when the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) approached the Supreme Court of India. As the result was described as a disappointment in the community, there was hesitation between the mutawallis (manager, trustee or superintendent of a waqf, an Islamic charitable foundation) and the management committees.
In addition, there was dissatisfaction with AIMPLB’s approach. While the council initially discouraged uploading documents on the portal citing fears that the Union government might interpret it as passing the Waqf (Amendment) Act, the position later changed due to fears of irreversible loss.
The AIMPLB is of the view that the legislation is discriminatory and contravenes Articles 14 (equality before the law and equal protection of the laws), 25 (freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion) and 26 (freedom to administer religious affairs) of the Constitution.
AIMPLB spokesperson and SQR member Ilyas told The Hindu, “We were hoping to stop the recording until the issue was fully resolved. But not to lose, the board then said that people can continue with the recording, the case has to go to a larger bench of the Supreme Court and the board will deal with it, including aspects of restriction of rights.” The scale of what is at stake is staggering. According to Telangana State Waqf Board CEO Mohammed Asadullah, the state has 33,929 gazetted waqf properties while another 13,400 were identified during the second waqf survey. This is in addition to the approximately 2,800 waqf institutions listed in the Kitab-ul-Awqaaf, an authority-maintained register of foundations that existed before 1954.
Spread across towns, cities and outlying villages, these assets form the backbone of religious, charitable and community life. And even these numbers, officials admit, may not capture the full range of waqf properties by user that exist without formal records.
The problems were not merely legal or procedural; they were also technical. “After we moved the Waqf Tribunal, there were some technical difficulties. The bulk approval selection was disabled. So we had to select each individual record to either approve or reject. This turned out to be time-consuming. The number of attachments or list of documents also increased,” says Asadullah, outlining the challenges faced by the Telangana Waqf Board.
The Telangana State Waqf Board (TGWB), located at Haj House in Nampally, administers the permanent endowment of movable/immovable property for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. | Photo credit: NAGARA GOPAL
On February 23, Syed Bandagi Badeshah Quadri, a member of the Telangana Waqf Board of Trustees from the mutawalli community, flagged other concerns, which he said were conveyed to chairman Syed Azmatullah Huseni. “Applications often show a status of ‘submitted’ but applicants are not notified if they are later rejected or require corrections,” he says.
Fault lines on the portal
Many, he points out, assume their applications are being processed when they may not be. As registration is ultimately dependent on approval on the portal, such loopholes may result in properties not being registered. “There is an urgent need to notify applicants through SMS, email or portal notification and ask them to re-check the status of their application,” he suggests.
Although these technical problems and procedural ambiguities persist, the number of waqf applications from the user has increased. This, in turn, revealed another fault line – more than one person or committee betting on a single institution in several cases. “In this case, we have decided to go by what the records say. If the records say that a person is a mutawalli, we are not entertaining applications where another person claims to be a mutawalli of the same waqf institution,” explains Asadullah.
When concerns about portal registration were at their peak last year, the human cost of the exercise took place late one night at the Shahi Masjid complex in the public gardens. There, the room was converted into a center for uploading waqf property details to the UMEED portal.
A man stepped out quietly. His shirt collar was frayed, his pants hung loose, and his worn rubber slippers clattered against his cracked ankles as he walked. Hours of waiting had dulled his eyes with fatigue. Overnight, he approached those who helped the applicants. When asked if his work was done, he nodded. He traveled from a place near Narayanpet, about 170 km from Hyderabad, to register a small mosque he had established years ago.
“Earlier, there was no mosque within 7-8 kilometers. About 25 people come to pray in our mosque. We need an imam (one who leads the daily congregational prayers). There is a place where he can stay,” he said.
Moments later, he got into a waiting autorickshaw, started the engine and drove off. His was another institution signed up to a large-scale, still-unfinished digital exercise. Volunteers say there have been many such cases: people from humble backgrounds, traveling long distances, determined to ensure that the waqf institutions they represent exist.
While there is anxiety among many stakeholders, some others, especially those associated with smaller and relatively newer waqf properties, say they have decided not to upload the documents. “It is not clear how the information will be used or whether the central government will interfere. That is why we have not gone ahead with uploading the documents,” says a person associated with the small mosque in Banjara Hills, built nearly five years ago, requesting anonymity.
Official figures released on February 24 show both progress and backlog. As many as 17,289 properties submitted by developers were awaiting approval, while 6,638 applications approved by controllers were awaiting approval. Another 23,945 properties have already been approved. Overall, records show that 62,837 waqf property registrations have been initiated or completed. But officials point out that those numbers mask the scope of pending work, with verification phases, documentation corrections and approval hurdles continuing to slow the process.
Even as the Waqf Board grapples with numbers and technical hurdles, a new complication emerged last week, adding another layer to an already challenging exercise.
A new complication
The Department of Heritage Telangana (DHT), formerly the Department of Archeology and Museums, claimed that the Waqf Board had entered certain medieval monuments – Muslim in nature – in the UMEED portal.
DHT director Arjun Rao Kuthadi told The Hindu that the department sought to remove these places of worship from the portal citing Section 3D of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025.
This section cancels any declaration of a protected monument as a waqf. Accordingly, any notification identifying the property as a waqf would not be valid if the site is protected under the Protection of Ancient Monuments Act 1904 or the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958.
However, the Waqf Board strongly pushed back against these claims. Senior officials say that while a formal response is being prepared and relevant documentation is being sought from the ministry, the issue cannot be reduced to a narrow legal interpretation. He argues that issues regarding the continuation of rituals, customs and worship in such places need to be investigated and addressed.
Officials say the very interpretation of Section 3D requires careful review. According to them, whether and to what extent the provision applies to the building itself or to the land on which it stands must be considered. A large-scale transfer of institutions and related land cannot be carried out without detailed discussion. While DHT officials have indicated that legal remedies may be explored if necessary, the Waqf Board continues to maintain that these are active religious places of worship and that it remains an interested party.
The controversy also raised political voices. Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, who is also the president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, raised serious concerns during the introduction and passage of the amendment over how Section 3D could be implemented. He warned that worship in such places could be curtailed or stopped altogether in certain contexts.
Mr Owaisi said the provision was not part of the original bill but was introduced “by stealth” on the day of the debate. The section, he said, will “uproot masjids, imam bars and dargahs from the Waqf Board”, resulting in Muslims losing their places of worship. He also cited the recommendations of the Sakhar Committee which suggested that the Muslim places of worship in Delhi under the management of the Archaeological Survey of India should be handed over to the Delhi Waqf Board.
Now, as legal interpretations are challenged and institutional positions harden, the clock is still ticking. With the March 12 deadline for uploading documents on the UMEED portal approaching, Waqf board officials say they remain hopeful of completing the process even as the digital exercise takes place amid unresolved disputes and growing uncertainty.
