Barely a week after laying foundation stone for Capital city, the State government has indicated that it would go for land acquisition to acquire about 300 acres at Thullur mandal in its Capital city area in Guntur district.
The opposition parties see it as intimidating the farmers to “fall in line”, while the AP Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) authorities are tight lipped in this regard. In fact, the government has also not divulged any details of 300 acre which it is proposing to acquire under the Land Acquisition (LA) Act 2013.
Agriculture Minister P. Pulla Rao merely said that 98 to 99 per cent lands in Tullur mandal have already been taken under the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS). The option was still open for land owners to join the LPS without the government having to invoke land acquisition, he said.
Neither Urban Development Minister P. Narayana, who expressed similar views, did reveal the details of villages where the LA notification will be issued.
Controversial move
The latest move has become controversial as it implicitly forces farmers to part with their fertile land where they raised high value crops. The farmers staged a dharna at Undavalli centre in Guntur district protesting against the land acquisition.
Communist Party of India –Marxist (CPI-M) State secretary P. Madhu said, “The government is intimidating farmers to fall in line. The ministers have been wielding LA Act from the beginning. The CPM would launch massive agitation if the government did not shelve is move to acquire the land forcibly.”
YSR Congress spokesperson K. Parthasarathi found fault with government’s move to acquire farmers land under land acquisition even after gathering 30,000 acres under land pooling. “The government is resorting to forcible acquisition. It has got huge land bank and efforts are being made for denotification of 50,000 acres forests lands and yet the multi-crop lands of poor farmers are not being spared. This is objectionable and we will stand by all those farmers,” he said.
80,000 acres
The State has over 80,000 acres of degraded and other types of land in its possession and still the government was looking at the multi-crop land of farmers and using force to acquire it, which was highly objectionable, he said.
After YSRC president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy held a deeksha, the State had announced that it would not take away any land forcibly, but it has resorted to the same tactics now, he charged.
The government even issued LA notification for acquiring land in Thullur mandal in August.
The tearing hurry with which the government tried to push through land acquisition process sparked off political protests and angered its supporter cine actor and Janasena chief Pawan Kalyan.
The State government shelved the proposal temporarily then.
The government is intimidating farmers to fall in line. The Ministers have been wielding LA Act from the beginning, says CPI(M) secretary P. Madhu
