Hyderabad: The Owaisis (MIM leaders) have been given valuable land in the city at a subsidised rate for a hospital. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao approved sanctioning of 6,250 sq. yards at Midhani in Bandlaguda mandal for Rs 3.75 crore for the Owaisis to construct a hospital and the Cabinet met on Sunday and reportedly approval the allotment. The present market value of land in Bandlaguda is nearly Rs 40,000 per square yard, and 6,250 square yards would cost Rs 24 crore. The government set the price at just Rs 6,000 per sq. yard, which is the registration value.

The MIM has had good ties with the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti since 2014 and Mr Rao sees the MIM as a friendly party. The land has been in dispute between the Owaisis and the state government for nearly a decade. While the Owaisis claim it is ‘abadi land’ (gifted land) revenue officials claim it as government land. The Owaisis obtained an NOC (no objection certificate) from the government on the grounds that it is abadi land during the Congress regime in undivided AP.

However, when Mr N. Kiran Kumar Reddy was Chief Minister, before the state was divided, the then chief commissioner of Land Administration, Ms Minnie Mathew, cancelled the NOC on the grounds that it is government land. Since then, MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has been requesting the government to allot the land parcel at least at a nominal rate for construction of a hospital for the poor. Mr Owaisi met Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday evening and repeated this request. He pointed out that several corporate hospitals in the city were allotted land at subsidised rates.

Interestingly, his request was approved in the cabinet meeting held the very next day. Sources said the Owaisi land issue was taken up for discussion in the Cabinet not as an agenda item but a table item and approved instantly. A Government Order in this regard is expected to be issued by the revenue department in a day or two. Being one of the biggest mandals in the city, Bandlaguda has large tracts of land that are under dispute.

Vast tracts of ceiling and abadi lands in the area are falling prey to land grabbers as no proper land records have been maintained. The Owaisis complained to the government that these lands are being encroached upon by land grabbers which allegedly led to an attack on Akbaruddin Owaisi, the MIM's Chandrayangutta MLA, in April 2011. Private individuals are claiming ownership of these abadi lands saying that the then Nizam's government had gifted these lands to their ancestors.