The Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency reclaimed about 92 acres of land that had been encroached for more than four decades on an operation held on March 26.
The issue traces back to 1980, when 1,100 people bought plots in Anandnagar Colony in Paati village on the outskirts of Hyderabad, anticipating future appreciation. Over the years, the 92-acre layout was systematically encroached upon. The encroachers created counterfeit passbooks, classified the lands as agricultural lands on the Dharani registration portal, and resold them — leaving the original plot owners with nothing but a grievance.
Dharani was launched by the Bharat Rashtra Samiti government in 2020 as a digitised, centralised platform for land registration. In practice, its architecture created new vectors for abuse. Intermediaries exploited the portal's online fee mechanism by altering digits on official challans and submitting forged receipts at Tahsildar offices to push through fraudulent registrations. The Congress government abolished Dharani and launched the Bhu Bharati portal in 2025, in part as a structural response to these failures.
The original plot owners spent years seeking justice through every available channel. Their efforts yielded nothing — a reflection of governance systems that lack both transparency and accountability. Eventually, they filed a complaint at HYDRAA's Prajavani, a weekly grievance forum held every Monday. The forum's caseload speaks for itself: it receives around 50 land-related complaints on an average sitting. After receiving the complaint, HYDRAA Commissioner A.V. Ranganath visited the site, verified the land documents, and confirmed that roads and land designated for public parks had been occupied.
HYDRAA officials told THE WEEK that this is the technique the agency uses. It studies current land ownership, examines whether it is legally tenable, identifies any occupied public land, and removes encroachments on those public spaces. That removal automatically revives the layout — and with HYDRAA's backing, original owners can reclaim their holdings without having to approach the courts. Crucially, the burden of proof shifts to the encroachers.
On the same day, HYDRAA also cleared encroachments on the Sambhuni Kunta lake near Beeramguda. Ranganath inspected the site and openly expressed his frustration at the lethargy of municipal and revenue officials — without whose complicity, he indicated, such long-term occupation of lakebeds could not have persisted. HYDRAA officials removed sheds and temporary business establishments from the lakebed. Local municipal officials, seemingly stung by the public rebuke, said they would not tolerate further encroachments and would ensure their immediate removal.