LPS: Committees formed to convince farmers

Minister asks them to identify land classification errors

Port works: Machilipatnam MP K. Narayana addressing the partymen at Machilipatnam.

Excise and B.C. Welfare Minister Kollu Ravindra and Machilipatnam MP K. Narayana on Friday appointed village-level committee comprising the TDP members to convince the farmers to part with their land for the port.

The duo on Friday asked them to strive for realising the dream of gathering land for developing the deep sea port in the first phase. Mr. Ravindra has asked the village-level teams to identify any document errors with regard to classification of land in order to change them in the official records before gathering it for the port.

Speeding up works

Meanwhile, the State government has shifted focus to prepare ground for commencement of Machilipatnam deep sea port works on a war footing instead of waiting till completion of gathering of over 30,000 acres of land for port and industrial corridor.

The Machilipatnam Area Development Authority (MADA), Krishna District Collector Babu A. and Excise and Mr. Ravindra have intensified efforts to hand over nearly 5,200 acres of land to the Department of Ports for developing the port. In a meet this week, Mr. Babu directed to the MADA officials to handover the land to the Department of Ports. The government owns 3,014 acres of land, including 654 acres of assigned land, and the rest of the land was to be gathered under the Land Pooling Scheme to hand it over to the port authorities. The villages that fall in the proposed deep sea port area are Machilipatnam, Manginapudi, Tapasipudi, Gopuvanipalem, Karagraharam, Chilakalapudi and Bandar East Revenue villages in Machilipatnam mandal.

“A plan to guarantee houses to those required to be rehabilitated in the port project should be prepared,” Mr. Babu told the MADA officials.