Faced with the challenge of funding its six guarantees, the Congress-led Revanth Reddy government is turning to the Land Regularization Scheme (LRS) to generate significant revenue. Despite previously opposing LRS, Revanth Reddy has reintroduced the scheme, aiming to collect 14% of market value charges for land regularization.
The government hopes to raise over Rs. 10,000 crore through this initiative, with officials projecting Rs. 7,000 crore in revenue from urban municipalities alone. To expedite LRS implementation, the government recently issued a directive mandating the resolution of all 25.70 lakh applications received in 2020 under the scheme.
Municipal and panchayat raj departments have been instructed to prioritize revenue-generating tasks over other responsibilities. Specific revenue targets have been set for the 129 municipalities and 13 municipal corporations across the state. Municipal officials, already burdened with the caste census survey program, are now under pressure to expedite LRS application processing.
The previous government had received approximately 25.70 lakh LRS applications across various departments in August 2020, of which 13.82 lakh were submitted to municipal authorities. The Congress government has set a March 31 deadline to address these applications. However, progress has been slow, with only 10,000 applications resolved so far, and revenue collection from resolved cases stands at a mere Rs. 115 crore, representing just 0.65% of total applications.
Officials are now scrambling to meet the ambitious deadline, raising concerns about the feasibility of resolving the backlog within the stipulated timeframe.