Farmers who signed up papers to receive compensation for extra high voltage transmission lines pass over their lands got a bigger shock learning of the massive difference in the valuation for neighbouring lands.
Ankar Rambabu from this village has his farm less than a kilometre from the busy Sangareddy–Narsapur road. Some 10 kilometres from the district headquarters town.
For the past six months he was restless and lost hope. In the beginning of the year he was served notices by a private firm — Maheswaram Transmission Limited (MTL) — stating that a 400 kV transmission line will pass through his farm.
Though, like many other farmers, Rambabu was reluctant to sign the papers, he was told by local Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader to do so. As the leader was ‘local dora’ most farmers had signed the papers, without any knowledge of how much compensation they would receive. Mr. Ramababu was paid a compensation of ₹1,46,687.
Recently, MTL displayed some documents at the panchayat office indicating the compensation fixed and paid to each farmer. In the list under serial number 66 to 69 for installation of four legs of 400 kv transmission line Kalvakunta Shiva Kumar was paid a compensation of ₹90,000 twice and Chilveri Padmaja was paid ₹ 2,16,000 two times. In other words a total of ₹6,12,000 was paid to two farmers for footing four legs of the HT tower.
