Waqf라이브 바카라 Revenue Problem: Subletting, Encroachment of Properties Biggest Contributors

In Raipur, the capital city of Chhattisgarh, there are some showrooms owned by waqf that are worth Rs 700-800 crore. However, the rent received from these properties is not even Rs 700. The Chhattisgarh Waqf Board informs that as per the state norms, the rent from these shops should be Rs 50,000 per shop. In fact, there is a shop whose monthly rent is only Rs 80 paise. This information is provided by Salim Raj, the chairman of the Sunni Waqf Board in Chhattisgarh. The tenants of the waqf shops either don’t pay any rent or it라이브 바카라 less than Rs 1,000. The properties that should have fetched revenues of Rs 200 crore are providing only 0.065 per cent of it, as per the Waqf Board.   

The Chhattisgarh Sunni Waqf Board has 5,725 properties, whose valuation the board estimates to be over Rs 5,000 crore. However, only Rs 13.61 lakh is received in revenues annually from these properties. The board attributes this situation to the encroachment on waqf properties and the subletting of waqf shops. The board states that 90 per cent of Waqf properties are encroached upon, and 200 shops on these properties have been sublet.

Subletting & Encroachments: A Problem Across Waqf Properties in India

Subletting means the person to whom the board allotted the shop has rented it out to someone else. Now, the first owner of this shop (the one to whom the shop was allotted) collects, say, Rs 20-25,000 in rent but pays only Rs 300-500 as rent to the Waqf Board. According to the board and Waqf rules, this is illegal. However, the Chhattisgarh Waqf Board claims to have initiated action against such shop owners, but no such case of action has come to light so far.

Subletting and encroachment are not problems limited to the Waqf board of a single state. Rather, almost every state라이브 바카라 Waqf board faces the same issue. The Madhya Pradesh Sunni Waqf Board, for instance, has 15,008 Waqf properties. However, the board states that over 90 per cent of these are encroached upon, and the shops are sublet.

The chairman of the board, Sanwar Patel, said that if only the sublet shops were vacated and the rent was received correctly, the board could earn at least Rs 200 crore in rent annually. Currently, the board does not even receive Rs two crore as rent.

He adds that there is a lot of mismanagement in the MP Waqf Board and subletting of houses and shops is adding to loses. “In the main town of Bhopal, there is a Waqf property named Okase Amba, which has 4,000 tenants (both houses and shops on rent). Out of these, 1700 tenants pay rent ranging from Rs 1 to Rs 99. Even the expenses of the rent collector cannot be covered in such a situation. This is the condition of most Waqf properties.”

Ineffective Actions Against Rent Defaulters

The MP Waqf Board also claims to have initiated action against those who have not paid rent for a long time, or against those caretakers who are earning revenue from the properties but not giving it to the board. According to the board, so far revenue recovery certificates worth Rs seven crore have been sent to such people.

Bihar is also among the Waqf boards that claim to be taking action while enumerating shortcomings, but no result of any action has been seen here either so far.

The Bihar Sunni Waqf Board has 2,900 properties, out of which 350 cases of encroachment are going on. The chairman of the Bihar Sunni Waqf Board, Irshadullah, says that besides encroachment, the problem of subletting is also significant in his state. He says that the board is working on removing shops from being sublet. He claims that if the shops are freed from subletting, the income of the Bihar Sunni Waqf Board is going to be double. 

Waqf activist Afroze Alam Sahil believes that the state governments and their Waqf Boards are responsible for the problem of encroachment and subletting. Sahil says: “This problem has not arisen in just one or two years. Rather, all this has been going on for decades.” He adds: “The leader of the party in power in the state is the chairman of the Waqf board. The BJP government is in power in most states. The BJP has been running the government in MP for 20 years and in Chhattisgarh for 15 years. So, the question is, what were the Waqf Boards here doing for so long? How is it that 90 per cent of the property here is under encroachment?”

Sahil also questions the Bihar Waqf Board as to why the same person has been the chairman continuously for 18 years? And why hasn’t he been able to remove the encroachment in 18 years?

He believes that the board has a representative of the ruling party, and those who encroach upon Waqf라이브 바카라 properties receive government protection. Therefore, the board does not take any strict action against them.

The Situation in Jharkhand

Questions have always been raised regarding the Waqf boards of Bihar and Jharkhand. The continuous tenure of Irshadullah as the chairman of the Bihar Sunni Waqf Board for four terms is described as unconstitutional.

Jharkhand is the only state in the country where the Waqf board has been reconstituted only once in the 25-year history of the state라이브 바카라 formation.

According to the board라이브 바카라 regulations, the Waqf board should have been formed in Jharkhand after the state's formation. However, the board was formed here eight years after the state's formation. After a five-year term, the board was to be reconstituted in 2013, but after a delay of 1.5 years, members were nominated for reconstitution in 2014, but the chairman was not elected. Then, ten years later, in September 2024, the Jharkhand Waqf Board was reconstituted, with Rajya Sabha MP Sarfaraz Ahmed being elected as its chairman.

In this situation, we can say that this is the first time since the formation of the Waqf board in the state that the board has been reconstituted. Due to the irregular functioning of the Waqf board in Jharkhand, the biggest loss has been suffered by the revenue. According to the board, revenue is received annually from only 20-22 out of the 152 registered properties of the Waqf, and that too is not regular. The board also has cases pending for the registration of 24 new Waqf properties for the past six years.

Ibrar Ahmed, a member of the Jharkhand Sunni Waqf Board and former president of Anjuman Islamia Ranchi, says that no matter which government was in power at Jharkhand, they all have ignored the Waqf board. If the Waqf board functioned properly in the state, action could have been taken against many sublet shops. Ibrar Ahmed says, “Anjuman Islamia Ranchi is a large property of the Jharkhand Waqf Board. It has more than a hundred shops in the main town of Ranchi. But 80 per cent of the shops are running on sublease. As a result, the rent that should have been Rs 10,000-15,000 is only Rs 500 to 1,500.”

According to the figures of the Government of India, cases of encroachment are going on around 59,000 Waqf properties. But social activists working on Waqf say that this number is more than a lakh. Obviously, encroachment on Waqf properties is a big problem. However, besides this, another problem that is visible is the subletting of shops, on which people pay less attention.

(Translated by Kaveri Mishra)