Registration hurdle hits 22L plot owners

Registry ban on unapproved layouts hinders sales

The state government's ban on the registration of plots in unapproved layouts, which went into force in August 2020, is having a devastating impact on more than 22.59 lakh plot owners throughout the state.

On August 26, 2020, the government enacted regulations prohibiting the registration of plots in unapproved layouts in municipal corporations, municipalities or gram panchayats. This resulted in a complete halt to the registration of these plots, which was devastating to the plot owners.

Owners are not in a position to sell their plots even to meet emergency demands, such as medical treatment of family members, education and wedding costs of their wards, etc. due to the ban on the registration of plots in unapproved layouts. Each plot owner paid the government `1,000 to apply for regularisation under the Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS) in October 2020, which earned the government over `259 crore in application fees alone, but the process was halted because of an ongoing Supreme Court litigation.

Subsequently, the government announced

LRS on August 31, 2020, urging owners to regularise their plots. The government gave time till October 31, 2020, to apply online for regularisation by paying application fees of `1,000. There was a significant response to the LRS, with up to 25,59,562 applications being submitted within the deadline. Of them, the highest number of applications came from gram panchayats at 10,83,394, followed by applications from municipalities at 10,60,103, and municipal corporations at 4,16,155. The government announced it would take up the regularisation process after determining the fees. The government aimed to complete the regularisation process by January 31, 2021. Meanwhile, petitions were filed in the Telangana High Court and the Supreme Court challenging the LRS. The Supreme Court stayed the LRS until further orders. The case is still pending in the Supreme Court.

Plot owners have appealed to the government to allow registration of plots so that they can sell them to meet their urgent needs. They contend that it is unfair to make them suffer due to the ongoing legal case and that the buyers were ready to regularise their plots later once the court clears the LRS scheme.