Telangana’s Land Records Enter the Blame-Management Era

The Congress government has found the ideal solution to Telangana’s land-record crisis: make the explanation longer than the queue. Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy told the Assembly that Section 22-A was inherited, had existed since 2007, and that restricted land had actually fallen from 1,02,52,690 acres in December 2023 to 1,02,05,250 acres by August 2026. Registration revenue, meanwhile, rose by ₹1,359 crore over five months. The message was clear: nothing fundamentally happened, except the part where registrations stopped and citizens discovered that their land had acquired a bureaucratic afterlife.

The 40,000 additions in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri were not 40,000 acres but house plots, Ponguleti said. A data-entry error, since corrected. Telangana’s land administration has now achieved a technological breakthrough: the difference between a plot and an acre can be clarified only after a family’s registration is blocked. The minister’s chronology is beautifully modern. The problem was inherited, the mistake was technical, the court caused corrections, and the citizen is invited to remain patient in the present perfect.

Harish Rao’s questions were less decorative. Why did the minister not say how many acres were added after Congress came to power? Why did registrations stop under the government now holding the files? Why apologise and launch a toll-free number if this was merely an old BRS inheritance? And where is the deadline, or the promised white paper? These are awkward questions because they move the conversation from the archaeological study of KCR-era records to the more immediate issue of what Revanth Reddy’s government is doing with them today.

Ponguleti also raised allegations about government, assigned and Bhoodan lands, including nearly 30 acres at Vattinagulapally. Palla Rajeshwar Reddy rejected the charge and challenged the minister to prove it. That is where the Assembly should stop being a trailer and become a record: establish it through documents, or retire it from the microphone. Meanwhile, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy continues turning every uncomfortable debate into a moral epic about KCR, the Kalvakuntla family and conspiracies. The government says the Opposition obstructs business, then supplies it with fresh speeches for the next obstruction.

The files remain restricted. The explanations remain unrestricted. The deadline remains absent.