Roughly 33 acres of assigned government land in Mankhal village, Maheshwaram mandal, Ranga Reddy district, worth an estimated Rs 1,000 crore, has been transferred out of the names of landless farmers and into the hands of private buyers. Villas are now coming up on the plots. The land sits on survey numbers 608, 609 and 610, and the revenue records themselves still show the government’s claim.

Records in the 1954-55 Khasra Pahani list the three survey numbers as government land, marked as Khariz Khata Sarkari. Together they total 35.36 acres: 10.37 acres in 608, 13.12 acres in 609 and 11.27 acres in 610. The plots were distributed under Indira Gandhi’s tenure as lavani pattas to landless poor families, and the farmers have cultivated them ever since.

The price tag that drew the big money. Over the decades, Hyderabad’s sprawl pushed the city closer to Mankhal. The Outer Ring Road now runs very close to the village, and a 100-foot road that serves a police quarters site passes right in front of these plots. Land in the area is reported to fetch Rs 20 to 30 crore an acre, which is why the parcels became a target.

How 33 acres changed hands. The land was supposed to be under the 22A prohibited list, which bars any transactions. According to the report, a private company colluded with officials of the time and carried out the deals quietly, three years ago. Through three phases and 22 documents, 33.08 acres moved from farmers’ names to other parties. VKR Builders and Developers representative Vaddireddy Rayapareddy got 15.29 acres. Mohammed Abdul Khabeer received 10.36 acres, Chekkala Ellaiah 3.39 acres, Vaddireddy Balreddy 1.25 acres, Nampalli Siddharth 13 guntas and Musinipalli Ashwini 26 guntas.

The registrations were carried out while the three survey numbers remained on the prohibited list, and they stayed there until the Bhu Bharati system arrived. Today, only a two-acre dumping yard portion of survey 608/5 still shows as prohibited. The report says the transfers were pushed through while attention was fixed on the Assembly elections.

Insiders named, but not on record. The report claims that a leader’s aide and Rayapareddy jointly steered the deals, with a benami holding also linked to the aide. It further alleges that after the Congress government came to power, a figure referred to as ‘big brother’ entered the picture, with Khabeer handling affairs for the aide’s side and a figure from Nalgonda for the builder’s side. These are allegations drawn from village accounts and sources. None of the named individuals is quoted responding in the report.

A probe that vanished. In September 2024, Namasthe Telangana first exposed the matter under the headline ‘Indiramma lands in corporate claws’. The company had already fenced the land with tin sheets. When the paper approached then Ranga Reddy Collector Shashank, he said a probe was underway into transactions converting lavani pattas to pattas, and that action would follow once the report arrived. The paper says the investigating officer later told associates he handed the report to the collector. Yet no trace of it has surfaced, and the Mankhal tahsildar office has no old pahanis or records for the three survey numbers.

Villas rising without permission. Construction began six or seven months ago, once the tin fencing was in place. Land has been levelled and pillars have started going up. The HMDA records reviewed by the report show no approval for these survey numbers. Officials from the former Tukkuguda municipality and the current Shamshabad zonal office have either denied issuing permissions or refused to confirm any. A former municipal commissioner said no permissions were given during his tenure. The Shamshabad deputy commissioner told the paper that no permissions were issued for the villas. Still, no action has followed. The HMDA application reportedly remains pending, and nala permissions were issued during the same period the transfers took place.

The Telangana angle: a double standard. Over the past two and a half years, the report argues, the same administration has been demolishing huts built by poor families on small government plots, with police backup and bulldozers. Here, no department has moved against a villa project on land that officials themselves recorded as government property. For buyers, many of them NRIs and people outside the state who were pitched by brokers, the risk is severe. If the land’s history is formally exposed, purchasers who paid crores could be left with titles that have no legal footing.

Villagers have taken matters into their own hands. Residents who know the land is government property have blocked construction work. Farmers who have worked the fields for decades have been going from office to office seeking justice.

Revenue officials have dismissed the matter as ‘an old transaction from the past’, even as the records show the land was government property.

The revenue department’s stance has not been tested in public. The question the report leaves open is simple and sharp: who ordered the records changed, and where is the inquiry report that was supposed to answer it?