Land regularisation row to dominate local body polls in Kothagudem, Yellandu

Land regularisation in Kothagudem and Yellandu has emerged as a key issue ahead of municipal elections, with thousands of applications pending despite repeated assurances. Residents expressed dissatisfaction with the Congress government for failing to act over the past two years.

Kothagudem: Regularisation of lands in Kothagudem and Yellandu is set to become a major agenda in the upcoming elections in the respective urban local bodies.

Residents waiting for the regularisation of lands are dissatisfied with the Congress government, which has neglected the issue for the past two years. None of the Congress leaders in the towns has raised the issue with the district ministers.

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Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy’s assurance to regularise the lands in response to the locals’ demand and representations by Kothagudem MLA Kunamneni Sambasiva Rao on many occasions has yielded no result so far.

It might be recalled that the previous BRS government had issued GO 76 in August 2019 with a cutoff date of June 2, 2014 to regularise encroachments, both residential and commercial units, on SCCL lands that were handed over to the State government.

In Kothagudem, as many as 7,000 applications were received in the first phase and 2,100 in the second phase. House titles were provided to 5,200 eligible people in two phases while the other applications were put on hold due to technical and other reasons.

As house owners and political parties requested to extend the cutoff date to June 2, 2020, the BRS government issued a GO MS No 28 in March, 2023 extending the GO 76 time limit from April 1, 2023 to June 30 to receive applications for the third phase regularisation of lands in Kothagudem, Bhupalpally, Asifabad, Adilabad, Mancherial and Peddapalli districts.

With that applications were received in Kothagudem and Yellandu. Officials initiated the process of surveying the lands and uploading the details online. The process was halted when the Assembly election code came into effect in October 2023.

About 2231 and 1562 applications were pending in Kothagudem and Yellandu municipalities respectively with no progress thereafter. Repeated requests by the locals to regularise the pending applications fell on deaf ears, complained former Kothagudem municipal chairperson Kapu Seethalakshmi adding that the issue would be raised during the municipal election campaign.

MLA Sambasiva Rao stated that he had requested the district ministers to address the issue, whenever they visited Kothagudem constituency, besides taking the matter to the notice of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy. However, for the reasons unknown the issue remains unresolved, he added.