The people of Pedda Karagraharam panchayat of Machilipatnam mandal on Wednesday decided to pass a resolution against the State Government’s move to acquire nearly 650 acres of land in the panchayat for various port-based industries.
Farmers and fisher folk of the panchayat turned up for the Grama Sabha here and discussed their plan of action to stop the land survey and acquisition process. The State Government plans to acquire 30,000 acres of land including 14,500 acres of private land for Machilipatnam deep sea port and other industries related to petrochemical and food processing sectors.
A total of 650 acres of land in the Peda Karagraharam panchayat would be acquired as per the land acquisition notification issued on August 30. The acquisition is under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
“People in four among the nine hamlets in our panchayat need to be displaced as per the notification, rehabilitating a few hundred families.”, said Peda Karagraharam Sarpanch Sonti Kalyani. The four hamlets to be displaced are - Salvation Army Colony, Kaputuru, Poruturu and Gowdapalem.
“We have already expressed our willingness to part with nearly 740 acres of land for the port. But we will not allow the survey team into our villagers as no one is interested to part with their land for other port-based industries”, said S. Fareed, a key activist and Ms. Kalyani’s husband. Mr. Fareed has added that the Panchayat was exploring options to launch legal battle to stop the land acquisition as the officials deliberately issued notification while land acquisition ordinance -2015 was in force to avoid consent from the Grama Sabha and conducting Social Impact Assessment study.
Speaking to The Hindu, In-Charge Revenue Divisional Officer P. Saibabu confirmed that there was no need to consult the Grama Sabha and carryout the Social Impact Assessment Study for the land acquisition as per the Land Acquisition Ordinance-2015 in the case of projects related to infrastructure sector. The survey teams were being trained in land survey in order to kick-start the survey from Friday.
