Finding fault with the Wakf Board’s decision to allot land to Private Merchant Association for setting up a fruit market, Syed Iftekhar Hussaini, General Secretary Association of Safe Wakf Property, said, “The Wakf Board’s move will land it into legal glitches if it fails to revisit its decision.”
It is pertinent to mention here that the Telangana State Wakf Board has alloted 14 acres of land to a Fruit Merchant Association to establish a fruit market for the merchants displaced from Kothapet fruit market last year. The land was located close to APJ Abdul Kalam Missile Complex at Mamidipally on Srisailam Highway.
The merchants were displaced from the old fruit market at Kothapet after the government made arrangements to shift the facility to Batasingaram.
Later, a delegation of merchants represents the wakf board for allotment of land to set up a fruit market. Subsequently, 14 acres of land parcel in Sy.No.90 at Mamidipalli Village near Pahadishareef area was identified. According to a report, a tender was called to allot land that attracts bids from three private Fruit Merchants Associations of which one was awarded the lease for 100 years.
It is against this background that the wakf activist maintained that flower, fruit and vegetable markets in the state are generally run by market societies under the aegis of the Agriculture Deartment. However, the Wakf Board has allotted the land to a private entity which is against the rules laid by under Wakf Act.
Blaming that Wakf Board is deliberately causing harm to the institution, Syed Iftekha Hussaini said, “All the proceedings have been done without making it public. The small-time merchants would suffer into the hands of a private association that will take all the decisions from selecting the merchants to allotment of sheds in the market.”
Demanding that the wakf board should immediately cancel the deal with a private entity, he said, “the whole state of affairs should be done in a transparent manner. Either the Wakf Board take the whole process into its hand or involve the agriculture department in shed allotments to merchants otherwise we will be forced to move to court of law for an appropriate remedy,” warned Hussaini.
