After the launch of the UMEED Portal on 6 June 2025, the Ministry of Minority Affairs worked tirelessly with States and Waqf Boards to train and prepare them for data upload. Seven zonal review-cum-training meetings were conducted with all States/UTs, and capacity-building funds of nearly Rupees 10 crore were released in tranches to 30 States/UTs and 32 Waqf Boards. Helpline support, VC-based training sessions and Master Trainer workshops were also organised. Yet, despite these extensive efforts, most Waqf Boards failed to utilise the first four months of the six-month upload window. They became active only in November, when over 2.42 lakh properties were initiated on the Portal. In contrast, June saw only 11 uploads, July 50, August 822 and September a little over 4,000, showing how casually the Boards treated the process initially. The following table is self explanatory to understand the seriousness of Waqf Boards in uploading existing properties on the UMEED Portal.

Table: Month-wise Waqf Property Initiations on UMEED Portal

UMEED Act, 1995 came into effect on 8 April 2025, and the window for uploading existing Waqf properties on the Central Portal closed on 6 December 2025. A total of 5,17,082 properties were initiated for upload, with the main surge occurring only in the final weeks, particularly in the last six days, when more than 2,43582 properties were initiated on the Portal. This shows the robust nature of the UMEED Portal. The data shows that almost all Waqf Boards, barring a few exceptions, remained inactive for the first five months and moved only when the deadline neared. Even then, the UMEED Portal handled the sudden spike smoothly, with many States ultimately completing uploads at exceptionally high levels.

Those Mutawallis who could not upload their Waqf properties before the 6 December deadline are not without recourse. The UMEED Act provides a clear remedial mechanism: they may approach their respective Waqf Tribunals for resolution.

Recent media reports claiming that “only 27% of Waqf properties have been uploaded” are based on a fundamentally flawed and outdated premise. They rely entirely on old WAMSI figures, numbers that today have no official relevance. WAMSI had long been recognised as unreliable: thousands of entries contained errors such as zero-area properties, mismatched or duplicate codes, inflated land areas without proof, and significant data-entry inconsistencies. Several State Boards themselves acknowledged these defects. The Ministry repeatedly directed States to correct the data; the matter was placed before both the JPC and the Hon’ble Supreme Court. Ultimately, due to persistent inaccuracies, WAMSI was formally disabled on 8 May 2025 and stands closed for all official purposes. Using this defunct dataset as the denominator for any percentage calculation is misleading and factually untenable.

What the media reports overlook is the remarkable final-phase performance on the UMEED Portal. As Boards intensified their efforts in late November and early December, the Portal witnessed unprecedented activity, over two and a half lakh uploads in the last 150 hours alone. Despite extremely heavy traffic, the system remained stable and fully functional, backed by round-the-clock technical support. Several major States recorded exceptionally high verified uploads, including Karnataka (58,328), Maharashtra (62,939), Gujarat (27,458), Telangana (46,480), Bihar (15,204), Punjab (25,910), Haryana (13,445), and Jammu & Kashmir (25,293), Uttar Pradesh (92,830).

Unlike WAMSI, UMEED is built on fresh, authenticated data captured through a maker–checker–approver workflow, with documentary evidence at every stage. Comparing this verified dataset with WAMSI’s error-ridden numbers is an apples-to-stones comparison.

The Ministry remains committed to transparency, accuracy and accountability. Any evaluation of Waqf property uploads must be based solely on verified UMEED data, not on a discontinued legacy system that no longer serves any official purpose.

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AK/MR