Even though the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown hit state revenue, the Revenue & Stamp department is bouncing back. In just two-and-a-half months, the state government earned Rs 2,000 in real estate registrations. 

A total of Rs 950 crore had been acquired by registration alone in January. 

The state receives major revenue from the registration department and stamps, commercial and excise departments (state own tax revenues). Due to the lockdown, the offices were shut down and no property transactions were conducted after that.

Property Registrations Department 

In order to ensure registrations of agriculture and non-agricultural properties via the Dharani portal, the state government declared a registration holiday for almost two and a half months in September 2020. Considering legal challenges, the Government of the state could proceed through the revenue department to register agricultural property through Dharani, while the old system was implemented from 14 December 2020 on the registrations of non-agricultural property.

Since 14 December approximately 3.10 lakh property documents, fetching Rs 1,950 crore to the Department were registered. The revenue in January was Rs 950 crore, but in February 2021 it stood at about Rs 640 crore.

Of the Rs 2,000 crore revenues yielding from the Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Medchal-Malkajgiri and Sangareddy real estate hubs since December 2020, nearly Rs 1200 crore were received. Following the relaunch of comprehensive sub-registrar offices, department revenues identified less than 50% of its normal daily revenues.

A senior CMO officer stated that for the financial year 2020-2021, the department's revenue targeted to collect approximately Rs 8,000 Crore. However, by the end of this fiscal year, the department could end up getting around Rs 5,500 crore. Initially, they expected to increase the land values by about Rs 10,000 crores for 2020-2021. But because of the lock-down effect, the idea has been dropped.

By: Shailaja K