Telangana’s SIR notices concentrate on Hyderabad outskirts, city sees lower share

Telangana’s ongoing Survey of Individual Records (SIR) drive has resulted in a stark geographic split, with the majority of notices being sent to areas surrounding Hyderabad and a comparatively modest share reaching the city itself, according to The Hindu.

Data released by the state revenue department show that more than six‑tenths of all SIR notices this cycle were dispatched to the periphery of Hyderabad, whereas fewer than 35 % were issued within the Hyderabad district. The leading cause recorded for the notices was the category “Unmapped with Last SIR,” which alone accounted for 34.9 % of the total, the newspaper noted.

The SIR programme, launched in 2022, is a statewide effort to reconcile outdated cadastral maps with current ownership information. Under the scheme, property owners receive a notice asking them to verify or correct details such as plot boundaries, ownership names and land‑use classifications. Completion of this verification is a prerequisite for the state’s transition to a fully digitised land‑registry system.

Hyderabad’s rapid urban sprawl has left many fringe neighborhoods with incomplete or missing mapping data. Earlier phases of the survey focused on the city centre, where records were already relatively current. The current round targets the suburbs and newly developed zones, where informal settlements and older parcels often lack official coordinates, which explains the higher volume of notices in those areas.

Owners who ignore a SIR notice risk having their records marked as “unverified,” a status that can complicate future property sales, mortgage applications and the provision of municipal services. To mitigate confusion, the government has established help desks and an online portal to guide residents through the verification process, with particular emphasis on outreach in peripheral zones where awareness tends to be lower.

The department aims to close the verification cycle by the end of the fiscal year. Once completed, the refreshed data will feed into the Telangana Land Records Management System, bolstering urban planning, tax collection and dispute resolution across the state.