Govt must clarify Section 22A land figures: BJP leader Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy

Khammam: BJP leader and former MLC Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy sought clarity from the government over figures relating to lands placed under Section 22A of the Registration Act, saying discrepancies in the data needed to be reconciled in the public interest.

Reddy questioned the extent of land removed from the prohibited list under Section 22A.

Speaking to media here on Sunday he said, “The extent of land under Section 22A stood at 1,02,52,690 acres as on December 7, 2023, and declined to 1,02,05,250 acres by August 31, 2026.”

However, referring to media reports on September 7 claiming that nearly five lakh acres had been removed from the prohibited list, Reddy sought an explanation on the apparent difference, methodology, and classification used to arrive at the figures. He also questioned the government’s claim that higher registration revenue indicated improvement in the situation.

“Registration revenue was stated to have increased from Rs 6,216 crore during April-August 2025 to Rs 7,575 crore during the corresponding period in 2026,” he said. Reddy pointed out that registration market values were revised from June 5, 2026, and said higher revenue alone could not establish that the Section 22A-related problems had been resolved. He sought disclosure of the total number of registrations during the two periods, the number of documents refused specifically on account of Section 22A, those subsequently cleared and the number of cases still pending.

The BJP leader said the government had stated that around 23,000 acres were restored to people and another 20,000 acres removed from the list due to errors in earlier records. However, he said, around 25,000 houses were still reportedly affected by Section 22A.

Reddy urged the government to put in place a time-bound mechanism to resolve genuine pending cases and release a comprehensive Section 22A white paper containing district-wise, mandal-wise, village-wise and survey-number-wise details.

While government and Endowment lands should be protected, lawful private properties should not remain blocked due to errors in classification or land records, he said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Hans India