Deadlines, disputes, doubts dog UMEED for waqf properties Premium

Telangana's UMEED initiative faces urgent challenges as waqf properties risk disappearing amid disputes and digitization hurdles.

If they miss the deadline, thousands of properties, some of them centuries old, may slip into a digital void.

That fear hangs heavy outside a central masjid in Hyderabad, where small groups of men wait in silence, files pressed close to their chests. Some hold rolled gazette notifications and title deeds while others carry electricity bills, tax receipts or fragile photocopies salvaged from ageing registers. Every scrap of paper matters. A few hundred metres from the masjid, across a busy road, another queue mirrors the first. On a designated floor inside a government office, young men with sunken eyes and parched lips — evident effects of fasting — type relentlessly into laptops. Every document that can establish a property as waqf must be uploaded to the UMEED Waqf portal before time runs out.

The urgency is unmistakable, the anxiety visible. The first deadline has already slipped by. The next one, March 12, is barely a fortnight away, and the scale of the task is overwhelming.

Launched amid promises of reform, the UMEED (Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development) portal was pitched last June by Union Minister for Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju as a system that would “not only bring transparency but also help the common Muslims, particularly women and children”. Conceived as a centralised digital platform, it seeks real-time uploading, verification and monitoring of waqf properties, offering geo-tagged inventories, GIS integration, transparent leasing records, an online grievance redressal system and public access to verified data.

In Telangana, however, the ground reality began unravelling within days of the exercise. Thousands of waqf properties had to be identified, their paperwork traced, collated and digitised, often from fragmented, incomplete or disputed records, within a rigid timeframe. Distrust over intent, unfamiliarity with digital procedures, confusion over technical questions and legal uncertainty combined to slow the process, even as the clock kept ticking.

Matters were further complicated when the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) approached the Supreme Court of India. With the outcome described within the community as disappointing, hesitation set in among mutawallis (manager, caretaker or superintendent of a waqf, an Islamic charitable endowment) and managing committees.