East Godavari district Collector H. Arun Kumar on Friday asked officials of the Revenue Department to intensify steps for undertaking the second and third phases of land acquisition for the Polavaram irrigation project.
At a meeting with the officials here, the Collector said the first phase of was completed with the acquisition of 1,469 acres in seven villages of Devipatnam mandal and another 3,809 acres would have to be acquired from the same mandal.
“Of the total extent, 1,242.79 acres is situated in Kondamodalu village alone. “As per the provisions of the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, Grama Sabha has to be conducted and an equal extent of holdings have to be distributed to the evacuees at the rehabilitation sites,” he said, asking the officials to convene the sabhas in the first week of November and make use of the ST sub-plan funds for providing land holdings to the evacuees.
Referring to the third phase of land acquisition, Mr. Arun Kumar said that an extent of 282.92 acres had to be acquired from Vara Ramachandrapuram (V.R. Puram) mandal. V.R. Puram was one of the mandals that was merged with East Godavari district from Khammam in Telangana to pave the way for the irrigation project.
He asked the Rampachodavaram Sub-Collector to identify the lands for the relief and rehabilitation packages and the Special Collector to undertake the land acquisition process. Rampachodavaram Sub-Collector P. Ravi, Special Collector K. Bhanu Prasad, Special Deputy Collector G. Satyaveni and officials of the Irrigation Department were present.
