Hyderabad: The prime parcels of land in Hyderabad have come under the eyeing of land sharks. With no infrastructure for building compound walls around the vacant lands, worth crores of the property are at stake.
The district administration does not even have the money to put the sign boards restricting the trespassers from these parcels.
“With the Miyapur land scam already rocking the government, we are worried about land sharks eyeing more parcels of vacant land as land prices are shooting up in the city,” a senior revenue department official said, admitting that the department does not have enough funds to deploy private security or put up signboards to prevent encroachments, reports TOI.
“Government prime land in 16 Mandals of the city and it is our duty to protect it by constructing compound walls but we don’t have the funds to do so,” the official added.
Revenue records show, there are 131 parcels of litigation-free, vacant government land spread over 59.13 acres. Though the district administration had estimated a cost of 9 crores for constructing compound walls it was able to only secure 68 land parcels at a cost of 3 crores. It is still awaiting the release of the remaining 6 crores from the chief commissioner of land administration (CCLA).
“The construction work was allotted to the Education and Welfare Infrastructure Development Corporation (EWIDC) and the Telangana Housing Corporation. Compound walls were constructed at 68 locations (24 in Hyderabad and 44 in Secunderabad revenue sub-divisional offices jurisdiction) only. We could not secure the remaining 63 land parcels due to fund crunch,” said Hyderabad joint collector and in-charge collector, M Prashanti.
“Post the creation of new districts, the flow of funds to us has totally stopped. The government is not even sanctioning the outstanding Rs 6 crore,” she said.