Telangana's Section 22A Land List Freezes Loans, Registrations and Livelihoods

<p>Dozens of property owners, farmers and builders from across Telangana gathered at the BRS party headquarters, Telangana Bhavan, on Friday to describe how the state government's expanding Section 22A prohibited land list has frozen registrations, bank loans, crop subsidies and welfare payments across several districts.</p>
<p>Among those present was K Hanumantharao, a retired ISRO scientist from Vasanthanagar in Kukatpally, who said construction and registration of a housing colony plot he purchased in 1985 were halted in March 2025 and February 2026, respectively, despite a prior court verdict clearing the title. He said the District Collector told him his paperwork was in order but that instructions from the Chief Minister's Office were blocking any movement.</p>
<p>In Yadadri-Bhongir district, residents of Vadayigudem village said 467 acres under survey number 518 were classified as Bhoodan land in December 2025, freezing roughly 10,000 residential plots along with the village's temples, a government school, the panchayat office and an anganwadi centre. They alleged that revenue records show only 20 acres as genuine Bhoodan land, and that a circular inflated the figure more than twentyfold to justify the listing.</p>
<p>The freeze has also cut off agricultural credit. In Kavtal mandal of Asifabad district, a tribal farmer named Bhimbai said her bank refused to renew a crop loan and stopped her fertiliser subsidy on her patta land after it was shown as assigned property, even though she had repaid Rs 19,000 in interest on her earlier loan. In Bodepalli village of Kaghaznagar mandal, farmer Gadiyala Mallaiah said officials refused to mutate his nine acres, inherited across three generations, in favour of his sons, declaring it government property.</p>
<p>Several cases carried allegations of extortion. In Medchal, Someshekhar Reddy alleged that a builder offered to clear the Section 22A tag on his 19-acre plot near ECIL, valued at around Rs 400 crore, only in exchange for 30 per cent of the land or Rs 120 crore in cash. In Kondapur's Sriram Nagar Colony, residents said sub-registrar office staff privately acknowledged that their 1985 layout, approved and registered for 40 years, should not be on the list, but still demanded Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh per transaction to push registrations through informally.</p>
<p>In Karimnagar's Rekurthi village, where roughly 800 acres and up to 10,000 households have been listed since July 2025, resident Yedula Rajashekhar noted that the same revenue official who certified mutation of the land in 2003 later signed the order placing it under prohibition, acting on instructions from the state government.</p>
<p>In Mancherial, residents said about 6,200 houses that the previous BRS government sold by registered deed to Singareni Collieries coal workers at nominal rates have been rendered commercially worthless after being swept into the town's central Ganj area listing, alongside roughly 1,300 forest-land pattas granted to families in 2018.</p>
<p>Builders said the fallout extended beyond individual households. Akula Satyanarayana, representing the Telangana Builders Federation for developers in the Peerzadiguda municipal area, said decades-old approved projects have been frozen without consultation, triggering loan defaults. He cited the passing of a developer who took their own life after his 280-acre venture was stalled as evidence of the toll on the sector.</p>
<p>Section 22A of the Land Registration Act allows the government to bar registration of land it classifies as government, assigned, endowment or otherwise disputed property. The fresh wave of complaints comes nearly two months after Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy admitted the widespread inclusions were a mistake, apologised and assured those affected that the issue would be resolved, with no apparent relief yet on the ground.</p>