Telangana’s record land bank contrasts with Revanth Reddy’s obsession with fresh land acquisitions

Despite vast unused parcels within the industrial land bank, the Congress government has been aggressively pursuing new acquisitions often targeting ecologically sensitive zones

Hyderabad: Telangana boasts of having the country’s largest industrial land bank with over 77,941 acres available. But Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s aggressive push for more land acquisitions – often in ecologically fragile or agriculturally rich areas – raises uncomfortable questions about the government’s lack of foresight and policy.

According to India Industrial Land Bank under Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, the industrial land available in Telangana is 77,941 acres, of which around 45,000 acres are available in and around the peripheral areas of Hyderabad and erstwhile Rangareddy district. This is almost 25 per cent of the entire nation’s land bank of 3,05,167 acres.

After Telangana, the States of Maharashtra (43,077 acres), Gujarat (42,991 acres) and Tamil Nadu (39,181 acres) have huge land banks available for industrial development.

Out of the industrial land bank available in Telangana, over 54,000 acres have been allocated for IT/ ITeS alone, 10,000 acres for mixed use, 2,634 acres for electronics hardware and the remaining land is put for defence and aerospace, food processing, textiles, automobiles, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Despite this mammoth land reserve which remains underutilised, the Revanth Reddy government has been aggressively pursuing new land acquisitions and clearance drives – often targeting ecologically sensitive zones and inhabited villages.

Among the most contentious proposals is the clearing of nearly 400 acres of green expanse in Kancha Gachibowli, a rare remaining lung space within Hyderabad’s urban core, for the IT/ITeS sector. Environmentalists, urban planners, students, and residents have voiced strong objections, citing irreversible loss to biodiversity and microclimate regulation. Due to the Supreme Court’s intervention, the forest clearance has been suspended temporarily.

The plans don’t stop there. The ambitious Future City proposed across 30,000 acres is expected to consume around 14,000 acres already earmarked for the Pharma City project, in addition to acquiring another 15,000-16,000 acres.

Simultaneously, farmers in Lagacherla and surrounding villages have raised alarms over pressure from government officials to cede their lands, despite the existence of vast unused parcels within the industrial land bank.

Critics argue that instead of utilising the already available land stock, the government seems fixated on acquiring more, raising concerns of speculative real estate interests masquerading as development.