The villagers of Kudikilla from Kollapur mandal of Nagarkurnool district are getting a double whammy with the Palamuru-Ranga Reddy Project, even while losing only 200 acres under it.
The 200 acres are being irrigated with water from the Kalwakurthi Lift Irrigation Project, for which the village had earlier sacrificed 1,800 acres of land!
“Our village will be totally wiped out under this latest project. We have refused to part with our lands, and chased away officials when they came to conduct survey,” Lakshmi Devamma, a woman from the village related to the jury at a public hearing on Wednesday.
She accused the legislator concerned who is also a minister in the Telangana Cabinet, of threatening them with forcible acquisition.
Similar is the fate of the villagers from Gudatipalli of Husnabad mandal from Siddipet district.
In all 2,200 acres of agriculture land was acquired from the village in 2010 for the Gouravelli Reservoir to be built in the Mid-Manair Dam region.
After Telangana State was formed Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao visited the project site, and decided to have a bigger the reservoir.
“Officials say 1,800 more acres will be acquired now. We have protested for three months, not allowing officials to survey the lands, but police was brought to suppress the protest,” a woman farmer from the village said.
While the villages under Mallanna Sagar Reservoir shot to headlines with their protests, many others could not, even while being forced to give up their lands under the controversial government order known as ‘GO 123’.
However, taking cue from the Mallanna Sagar protests, they have learnt to dig in their heels and refuse to yield. Many villagers are conducting relay hunger strikes.
“We refuse to give up our lands and villages come what may. We told the same to the Joint Collector and asked them to show land and houses elsewhere before being evicted,” said Irikecherla Shantamma from Vallur village of Jadcherla mandal, set to be wiped out along with seven hamlets in the enhanced Uddandapur Reservoir project.
Another grievance shared with the jury was about confiscation of ‘podu’ agriculture lands in Khammam under the ‘Telangana Ku Haritha Haaram’ project.
“The erstwhile Khammam district had unsettled claims for 2.5 lakh acres under the ‘podu’ cultivation by tribals. Officials are denying quite a few claims saying that the claimants were non-tribals. For some others, they are settling under the condition that the beneficiaries would plant only trees approved by the Forest Department under Haritha Haaram,” said Usha Seetalakshmi from Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch, the co-organisers of the public hearing along with Dalit Bahujan Resource Centre.
The public hearing was also attended by rebel farmers from Thoguta and Kondapaka mandals of Mallanna Sagar area who waged a pitched battle against the Government’s acquisition move.
Retired bureaucrat and member of Koneru Ranga Rao Committee on land reforms T. Gopal Rao, Journalist Uma Sudhir and human rights activist and advocate Jayasree heard the villagers and gave them advice.
