Hyderabad, Dec 5 (IANS) Telangana’s Minister for Minority Welfare Mohammed Azharuddin on Friday welcomed the decision of Union Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju to extend the deadline for registration of Waqf properties on the UMEED Portal.
Azharuddin urged the Telangana Waqf Board and all mutawallis (custodians) to use this additional time and complete their entries without delay.
“This is an important step in protecting our Waqf properties, strengthening transparency, and ensuring that the people of Telangana continue to benefit from the services and support these institutions provide,” the minister posted on X.
The deadline for registering Waqf properties on the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development (UMEED) portal of the Centre ended on Friday, but Kiren Rijiju announced that there would be no penalty for three months for those who failed to register, and that they could approach the Waqf Tribunals in their respective states.
State Waqf boards and mutawallis of the properties have been facing issues such as the portal crashing, difficulty in finding documents regarding centuries-old properties and different measurements used for land in different states.
Rijiju stated that lakhs of Waqf properties have not been registered on the portal. Several MPs and leaders from different states had brought to his notice that there were issues in the registration of 9 lakh Waqf properties.
According to the Union Minister, only 1.51 lakh Waqf properties have been registered so far on the portal.
Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy had also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to extend the deadline for registration of Waqf properties on the portal by one year.
In a letter to the Prime Minister last month, the Chief Minister wrote that the extension was essential to ensure comprehensive and error-free registration of all Waqf properties in the state. He stated that the process was facing delays due to technical issues, scattered archival records, and the need to verify the authenticity of century-old documents.
“The extension of time will help Telangana Waf Board and all associated institutions to complete the process transparently, accurately, and in full alignment with the objectives of the Umeed initiative,” he said.
The Chief Minister highlighted three major challenges that have slowed the data entry process. First, many mutawallis are not familiar with the technical aspects of the online portal. Second, a large portion of Telangana’s Waqf records are more than a century old and dispersed across various government departments and digitising these records to ensure authenticity has been a complex and time-consuming exercise.
He also wrote that repeated technical glitches affected the smooth operation of the UMEED portal.
