The proposed auction of truck park land in Moosapet, Hyderabad, has triggered a political protest, with Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader T Harish Rao alleging that the Telangana government is putting public-use land up for private development. The Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) has notified the auction for November 27, according to a report by the Times of India.
Harish Rao, a former minister, inspected the site in Kukatpally constituency on November 13 along with BRS legislators and members of the Legislative Council. Later, members of the BRS, Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist) staged a dharna at the truck park against the proposed sale.
At the protest, Harish said the auction covered several parcels identified by survey numbers 121/P to 141, along with 146, 147, 155, 156 and 157 in Moosapet. He alleged that the land included facilities and sites intended for public or government use, including the truck parking facility, an HMDA nursery, a Regional Transport Office, a traffic police station and an MLA camp office.
Harish further alleged that the land had been acquired from economically disadvantaged Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe farmers in 1982 at ₹1 lakh per acre, on the condition that houses or commercial establishments would not be developed on it. He said the same department had previously filed affidavits in the Telangana High Court and the Supreme Court stating that the land would be retained for truck parking and public use.
The reported allegations place the proposed auction within a wider dispute over the conversion of government and public-purpose land in Hyderabad. Harish claimed that government properties valued at ₹1 lakh crore had been put up for sale and that properties worth around ₹26,000 crore had already been auctioned. The report did not include an independent valuation or documentary confirmation of these figures.
He also alleged that land associated with the Housing Board, Rajiv Swagruha, Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, HMDA, the Central University, Urdu University and other public institutions was being converted into private property. These claims were made during the protest and were not independently established in the report.
Harish separately alleged that the HILT policy was being used to regularise 9,900 acres of industrial land in Balanagar, Azamabad and Jeedimetla at what he described as throwaway rates. The report did not provide the government’s response to these allegations or details of the policy’s implementation.
The immediate issue is the HMDA-notified auction of the Moosapet parcels on November 27. The protest has brought attention to how land originally designated for transport infrastructure and other public facilities is being treated in the city’s land market. Further developments will depend on the auction process and any response from the Telangana government or HMDA.
