Government of Telangana. constitutes a high-level committee to resolve the land dispute under section 22A
The Telangana government has decided to end the raging controversy over the inclusion of vast private lands under Section 22A of the Registration Act.
30-day deadline for submission of recommendations
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has announced the formation of a high-level official committee to study the issue in depth and suggest remedial measures so that not even a single bona fide landowner is adversely affected. A high-powered committee comprising Law Secretary, Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA), Commissioner of Registration and Stamps and other senior officials has been given 30 days to study the issue and come up with recommendations.
The chief minister attributed the absence of sub-division of land by individual governments to the backlog of land under Section 22A and said his government was firm on developing the mechanism in this direction.
In a marathon speech in the Legislature on Wednesday (September 16, 2026), responding to opposition members’ allegations against the inclusion of lands in Part B, he said that the Congress government had actually reduced the number from 21.93 lakh acres to around 17 lakh acres since it started the Ratsha’s record of corrupt revenue by the Bhara Samith. (BRS) government. Several anomalies in the land registry update program initiated by the previous government paved the way for the expansion of the banned land list.
12-point action plan
With the government focused on solving the long pending land issues, CM A. Revanth Reddy announced a 12-point action plan in this direction.
1) Regulation of ULC Lands: Guidelines will be issued soon to cover pending and new applications
2) HMDA, GHMC and DTCP countries: System to be set up in a week to examine pending registrations of approved disbursements
3) Land issue in SCCL coal belt: High level district committee will be constituted
4) GO59: A committee will be set up to examine and approve 1,22,280 applications with transport documents
5) GO 118 (LB Nagar): Pending applications to attend within stipulated time. Dissolved cases will be removed from the section 22A list.
6) Houses built on allocated plots: There will be a detailed legal review and extensive consultation
7) Houses built on government land with government expenditure: There will be extensive consultation
8) Houses built on own land with government expenditure: Permission to transact after a five-year lock-in period
9) Private land patta pending nala conversion charges: Transactions will be allowed after payment of nala conversion, stamp duty and registration charges
10) Illegal and unauthorized arrangement or colony on Govt. country: A new regularization regime will be introduced
11) Rent to freehold regulation in Secunderabad: Committee to be set up in 30 days
12) Allotment of Freedom Fighters and Ex-Servicemen and Bhoodan Lands: To be incorporated in a comprehensive land pooling scheme which envisages houses for marginalized and weaker sections
Administrative errors and technical problems
The current government has launched an exercise to identify genuine and encroached lands as the High Court has taken a serious look at the huge dependency of Part B lands. Thus, it has been revealed that the entries in the banned land list were partly due to clerical errors and partly due to technical problems.
“The land on the banned list has not been cleared even though the government has sold the land to various agencies and subsequent transactions have taken place,” he said.
Tracing the origins of section 22A
Tracing the origin of Section 22A to the 1990s, he said the then YS Rajasekhar Reddy-led Congress regime enacted legislation in 2007 to ensure that lands owned by the Government, Endowments, Wakf, Forest and others were protected from encroachment by including them in the prohibited list. “These approximately 98 thousand acres of land should remain on the off-limits list. Can we delist them so they become vulnerable to encroachment?” asked the impertinent BRS to clarify its position on the issue.
However, the lists of these plots were not circulated at the sub-registration level, which resulted in the relevant sales contracts being drawn up in due course. “Though the list of Part B plots is being circulated to the Sub-Registrar Offices (SROs), their location in the respective registration numbers has not been communicated to the Sub-Registrar, complicating the situation,” he said.
During the BRS regime, there were 7.91 million private lands in Section B, which has reduced to 3.73 million acres today. Although it was a legacy issue, the main opposition BRS tried to shift the blame to the government as “They (BRS leaders) fear that land embezzlement during their tenure will come to light if an inquiry is ordered,” Mr Reddy said.
The government has therefore decided to introduce an effective mechanism so that registrations are not stopped. “The system will be implemented within seven days,” he said.
The poor guy was suffering from a stroke of the pen
The chief minister launched a scathing attack on the previous government for its decision to implement the Dharani portal, which caused suffering to thousands of people. “Data on 2.5 million acres along with landowner information landed in the hands of vested interests through Dharani. These vested interests are based in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands and British Virginia,” he said.
The portal helped legalize land in the name of those close to the powers that be in the BRS government. “The extent of the irregularities can be gauged from the fact that the project, which started with an estimate of ₹110 crore, was subsequently valued at ₹1,350 crore,” he said. In the process, the previous government repealed the Land Grabbing Act, which was a deterrent to those who sought to encroach on government land. The Dharani portal has seen the removal of important pillars such as the ‘tenure’ and ‘enjoyment’ pillars to ensure that land can be misappropriated.
Published – 16 Sep 2026 17:42 IST