Minister miffed over pile-up of LRS cases

Hyderabad: The slow pace of the processing of the Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS) has irked the Revenue Minister, Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, who expressed displeasure at the officials for the thousands of applications that are pending approval.

The Minister expressed displeasure during a video conference with the district collectors on Tuesday. He said that lakhs of people have been waiting for LRS since the last four years, and the Collectors have been directed to resolve the war proposal applications without any delay. He expressed his displeasure that the LRS process is not going as expected by the government, and in some districts thousands of applications were being processed in tens of thousands.

The Hans India had recently published a news article about the pending applications of LRS. The report published on September 27 had news that out of the 2.57 crore applications in the State only over 60,000 layouts were approved. The government had collected over Rs 96 crore through these approved layouts.

On the Urban Development Authorities, the Minister directed the Collectors to send proposals regarding the expansion of the scope of Urban Development Authorities (UDAs) and the formation of new UDAs immediately. On flood relief, the Minister said that because of the recent heavy rains, the state government allocated Rs 3 crore to 29 districts and Rs 5 crore each to Khammam, Suryapet, Kothagudem, and Mahabubabad. The government also allocated Rs 1 crore each to municipalities and Rs 2 crore each to the corporations to identify the flood-affected areas and take immediate repairs. The Minister suggested to the Collectors to give top priority to the repairs of government schools, primary health centres, and Anganwadi centres.

The Minister disclosed that they were providing a bonus of Rs 500 per quintal for 35 fine varieties of grain from this kharif season. He said that 7,144 procurement centres were being set up across the state for the purchase of paddy. Separate purchase centres were being set up for fine grain and paddy grain.