Decline in land registrations hits revenue in old Karimnagar

Over the past two years, the Registrations Department, the second-largest revenue-generating wing for the state government, has encountered a notable decline in registrations within the former Karimnagar district.

Karimnagar: Registrations department, which is the second biggest wing that fetches revenue to the state government, is facing the scarcity of registrations during the last two years in the erstwhile Karimnagar district.

Besides post covid situations, assembly and parliament elections are said to be the reasons for the decline in land registrations. Though there is no problem for registrations during the time of covid in 2020, less number of registration were done in 2022, 2023 financial years. Compared to previous years statistics, there is a more than 20 percent decline in land registrations. Subsequently, the government suffered a loss of hundreds of crore.

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For instance, on an average, about 40 registrations used to be done in Peddapalli sub-register office every day. Surprisingly, it has declined to 15 to 20. Besides a main registration office, 14 sub-registrar offices are there in the erstwhile Karimnagar district.

According to statistics, 14,234 land transactions were done in the financial year 2021-22 and the government got Rs 762.64 crore revenue. However, the number of transactions declined to 10,812 in 2022-23 and revenue Rs 423.02 crore. There is Rs 339.62 crore decline in income.

Similarly, transactions further declined in 2023-24. Government got Rs 262.06 crore through 6,700 registrations. There is Rs 160.96 crore revenue decline. When compared to 2021-22 financial year’s revenue, there is Rs 500 crore revenue decline. According to the registrations department source, people were not showing much interest in spending money on purchasing lands after covid pandemic. Moreover, realtors were also staying away from land transactions in the wake of elections.

A majority of the realtors have been associated with any of the political parties. It is not possible to carry more than Rs 50,000 if the model code of conduct was in force. People have to show accounts for the excess cash. Cash would be utilized for almost all land transactions since there would be a lot of difference between market value and open market rate of the land. So, it was not possible to show accounts to election authorities. So, a majority of realtors were staying away from land transactions.