Ration cards of little help as residence proof

Over 75,000 applications for land regularization in Ranga Reddy district rejected

Majority of the 75,000 rejected applications for regularisation of encroached government lands in Ranga Reddy district may have been due to submission of ration cards as residence proof.

While the cut-off date for the regularisation according to the relevant GO is December 31, 2003, many ration cards were issued only in subsequent years, between 2004 and 2006, authorities informed. Further, quite a few old ration cards were also replaced with new ones during the aforementioned period. Thus, people who had forfeited the old cards had also forfeited their proof of residence in the bargain.

While the total number of applications received in the district stood at over 90,000, more than 79,000 of them have stood rejected—over 75,000 of them due to lack of proof of residence. Majority of the rejections pertained to people from BPL sections residing in slums surrounding the city, informed officials.

While it is widely acknowledged that the only proof of residence that can be provided by slum dwellers is ration card, officials refuse to accept it as solid proof. Some produced residence proof from panchayats, which too were rejected, informed officials.

“The ration cards issued in 2006 were mainly intended as proof of poverty status. They cannot serve as proof of residence, as address may be changed later . We also accepted electricity bills, telephone bills, and receipts of municipal tax payments or property tax payments, apart from other such documents indicating residential status,” an urban revenue official informed.

Deliberations are on about the review of the rejected applications, and a new order with amendments may soon be issued, leading to regularisation of majority of the applications, informed officials. Nearly 73,000 applications were received from urban mandals such as Serilingampally, Quthbullahpur, Saroornagar, Rajendra Nagar and Uppal which are more or less part of the city, while those received from rural mandals stood at over 17,500. Regularisation of up to 80 square yards was to be done without penal charges, while over and above the limit was to be regularised by collecting penal amounts.