HYDERABAD: BRS working president KT Rama Rao on Friday accused the state government of attempting to execute what he described as the “mother of all land scams” worth Rs 5 lakh crore.
Addressing the media at Telangana Bhavan, KTR claimed that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had pushed a Cabinet resolution to implement the Hyderabad Industrial Lands Transformation Policy (HILTP) with the sole intention of enabling the scam. His allegations came a day after Governor Jishnu Dev Varma accorded sanction for his prosecution in the Formula E Race case.
Calling the move “the biggest land scam in the history of India,” the BRS leader said the policy was crafted to benefit a network of politically connected middlemen, the chief minister’s relatives and real-estate groups working closely with him.
According to him, the HILTP — presented by the Congress government as a land regularisation and redevelopment measure — was nothing more than a strategy to convert thousands of acres of high-value industrial land into multi-use properties at throwaway prices. “This is not a policy but a blueprint for a Rs 5 lakh crore scam,” he alleged.
He said the policy seeks to regularise nearly 9,292 acres spread across prime industrial clusters such as Balanagar, Jeedimetla, Sanathnagar and Azamabad. With current open-market prices of Rs 40–50 crore per acre, the total value of these lands stands between Rs 4 lakh crore and Rs 5 lakh crore.
Accusing the government of trying to hand over these lands at barely a fraction of their worth, KTR said: “Revanth Reddy is attempting to regularise lands at just 30% of the outdated SRO rate — an SRO rate that itself is four to five times less than the actual market price.” Even this SRO value, he alleged, was not being collected fully. “Only 30% is being taken. The remaining lakhs of crores will end up in private pockets,” he charged.
‘BRS govt rejected similar proposal’
The BRS working president pointed out that these lands were initially allotted at heavily subsidised rates to promote employment, industrialisation and economic activity. Many were acquired from farmers specifically for industrial development.
“The intention was to create jobs. Now those very lands are being handed over for private profit,” he said. He added that during the BRS government, similar proposals from brokers were rejected because “public land cannot be gifted away cheaply to private companies to help them make money.”
Expressing suspicion over the “extraordinary urgency,” he questioned the policy’s timelines: seven days for applications, seven days for approvals and 45 days for full regularisation. “Why this lightning speed? Why this rush?” he asked. He further alleged that middlemen close to the chief minister, including his brothers and associates, had already entered into pre-arranged land deals even before Cabinet approval.
KTR issued a stern warning to industrialists not to enter into agreements under HILTP, cautioning them that they could lose their lands once the BRS returns to power.
“Instead of auctioning public land and filling the state coffers, Revanth is trying to loot Rs 5 lakh crore and stash at least Rs 50,000 crore into his own pocket,” he alleged. He added that the BRS would challenge the policy legally.
I did nothing wrong: KTR
On the Formula E Race case, he reiterated that he had done nothing wrong. “I have said a hundred times—I did nothing wrong. I even said I was prepared for a lie-detector test,” he stated. He said that the state was being run by a “joint-venture government of BJP and Congress.” He alleged that Central agencies were turning a blind eye to the irregularities committed by the Revanth government.