National Alliance of People’s Movement convenor Medha Patkar has demanded payment of Rs.15,000 as monthly pension to landless working class families who are likely to be deprived of their livelihood in Amaravati, the upcoming capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Ms. Medha Patkar, Ramakrishna Raju, convenor, NAPM (AP), and Veghese Theckanath, Director Montfort Social Institute, said if Amaravati would be a people’s capital as claimed by the government, then everyone, especially the unorganised working classes should have a right to the city as well as development. They have a right to land, housing and other resources just like landlords.
Stating that the paltry Rs.2,500 pension promised for the landless working class would render them “beggars”, they demanded Rs.15,000 per month be paid to them for the next 10 years with an annual increment of 10 per cent. Every family unit of the landless affected by the new capital should be included for such compensation.
Criticising the huge spending for the foundation day ceremony, they alleged that the capital was a game of capitalists, including real estate developers who were in nexus with politicians.
The core capital region alone would displace around 90,000 marginal farmers, lease holders, agricultural workers, fishermen and other unorganised labour classes, they said.
Questioning this paradigm of development, “Modi-Naidu model of urbanisation and undemocratic, unsustainable development planning”, they declared that they would support farmers and labourers, who were refusing to give land and those made destitutes by the new capital, Amaravati.
