It was a massive expression of a firm ‘no’ to surrender their lands to the government for establishment of National Investment and Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ) that has been coming up at Zaheerabad. Hundreds of farmers from three villages – Mamidgi, Ganeshpur and Rejintal — along with families arrived here on Monday afternoon to present individual memorandums to the Collector as it was the day for receiving representations from the public. However, they were not allowed inside by security personnel.
“We are not ready to hand over our land for NIMZ. Many of us are small and marginal farmers with half acre, one or two acres. By surrendering our lands we will slip into the category of landless farmers, who will finally become labourers from farmers. The compensation being offered by the government was so little that we cannot buy lands in the nearby areas with that amount. How can we survive and what will be our future?” asked K. Mallikarjun, one of the farmers from Mamdgi village in Nyalakal mandal. He claimed that he is a postgraduate with B.Ed. qualification and dependent on farming as he could not get a government job. The family owns about 24 acres.
The farmers carried their lunch and had it in front of the collectorate.
“My livelihood is completely dependent on the 1.39 acres of land I own at Mamidgi village. The notification issued by your authority on October 2nd in Namaste Telangana seeking our land for the NIMZ will harm our family. The public purpose stated in the notification is very perfunctory and does not provide any statement on the nature of public purpose involved. I feel that the extent of lands sought is also very huge for the requirements of the projects, and it leads to the doubt whether excess lands are sought to be acquired with the intention of transferring lands from the poor farmers to the resourceful industrialists with the State becoming a middleman and also benefiting from the transactions in terms of huge revenues by sale/ lease of land to industrialists,” said P. Nagappa, a farmer from the same village in the memorandum submitted to the officials.
Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) president M. Kodandaram participated in the protest held by farmers and extended his support to their agitation.
