People Wait For LRS, BPS Continues Unabated

Hyderabad:The prolonged wait for lakhs of applicants of the Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS) and Building Penalisation Scheme (BPS) continues across Telangana, with procedural delays, poor departmental coordination, technical bottlenecks and allegations of corruption pushing citizens into distress.While the BPS files have remained stuck since 2015 due to litigation in the Supreme Court and High Court, the situation with LRS, reopened in 2020, has become equally chaotic.Of the 25.67 lakh LRS applications received statewide, a staggering number remain unresolved despite applicants paying hefty regularisation fees between February and June this year. Within GHMC limits alone, 1.39 lakh citizens had applied under BPS.Despite the government collecting hundreds of crores in application fees and regularisation charges under the LRS and BPS schemes, citizens who paid their hard-earned money have been left completely in the lurch.The state government announced a 25 per cent rebate on LRS fees in February 2025 to encourage applicants to clear their dues and complete the regularisation process. The initial deadline of March 31 was later extended several times, eventually pushing the cutoff to June 30.The previous BRS government had called for LRS applications from August 31 to October 31, 2020. In all, they received 25.44 lakh applications, including from panchayats (10.76 lakh applications), municipalities (10.54 lakh) and municipal corporations (4.13 lakh). The government had received 1.06 lakh applications in GHMC limits, 1.01 lakh applications in Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation (GWM) limits and 50,000 applications in Khammam Municipal Corporation limits.The state government earned nearly Rs 250 crore through application fees alone. Each applicant had paid Rs 1,000 for small plots and Rs 10,000 for bigger ones towards regularisation. Soon after collection of application fees, the government halted the process citing legal issues. It remained halted till February 2025, when Congress government resumed the scheme by offering 25 per cent rebate in LRS fees.Though the government had promised to issue LRS proceedings within 15 days of payment in February 2025, applicants complain that even after eight months, they have not received their proceedings.The official portal shows a majority of applications frozen at the first-level verification (L1), handled by revenue and irrigation officials who must certify whether plots fall in prohibited zones, water bodies or encroachments. The subsequent L2 scrutiny by town planning authorities and L3 approvals by Municipal Commissioners have seen negligible movement, resulting in statewide stagnation.Applicants allege that lack of coordination between municipal, revenue and irrigation departments has crippled the process. Despite fee payments being accepted after scrutiny by municipal officials, applicants allege there has been no communication afterwards. Complaints are widespread that officials do not provide clarity on file status and shift responsibility among departments, leaving people in limbo.The government, which had issued notices to 20,00,493 LRS applicants in April 2025 to pay regularisation and pro-rata open space charges, saw only 3,25,538 applicants paying fees by May. Earlier, of the total 25,67,107 applications received — including 15.37 lakh from municipal bodies and 9 lakh from gram panchayats — around 5 lakh were rejected for various technical reasons. Even among fee-paying applicants, proceedings have not been issued in most cases, prompting criticism over administrative apathy.Official sources said, across the state, only about 20 per cent of applicants have received proceedings so far. Revenue and irrigation officials have reportedly kept thousands of applications pending in their logins for months, stating that applicants have not approached them, while people counter that they were never informed that their physical presence was required. Applicants who follow up with municipal authorities are being told that LRS proceedings cannot be issued unless revenue and irrigation clearances are granted, causing further frustration.Amid the growing allegations, reports have surfaced of bribery, with applicants alleging that some officials clear pending files within a week if paid around `10,000 directly or through middlemen. Such complaints are especially strong in HMDA limits, where nearly 3.60 lakh LRS applications were filed from 1,200 villages, but only 70,000 applicants paid fees, of whom barely 20 per cent have received proceedings. HMDA has so far issued only 8,706 proceedings.In Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation limits, only 8,000 of 72,196 fee-paying applicants received proceedings. In Turkayamjal municipality, just 3,000 out of 40,881 applicants got approvals. Pedda Amberpet saw only 2,000 proceedings issued out of 34,776 payments. In Khammam, 2,800 of 29,321 applicants received proceedings; in Karimnagar, 2,500 out of 24,020; in Suryapet, only 3,925 of 31,940; and in Choutuppal municipality, barely 10 per cen of applicants received their orders. Applicants allege that revenue and irrigation officials are intentionally delaying clearances, resulting in files piling up across municipal and gram panchayat offices.To ease the burden on applicants, the Telangana government has extended the rebate deadline for LRS regularisation charges and pro-rata open space charges until J, 2025, allowing a 25% rebate for those who complete payments before the deadline. However, applicants question the relevance of rebates when basic proceedings are not being issued despite payments being made months ago.With delays, departmental blame games and allegations of corruption eroding public trust, lakhs of applicants across Telangana remain uncertain about when or whether their LRS and BPS applications will finally be regularised.



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