The tahsildar of Rolugunta mandal Pentakota Appalanaidu in Visakhapatnam district reportedly confessed before the fact-finding team that visited the mandal on Friday that he was under pressure to remove the names of the tribal farmers in the newly-created WebLand records.
Eleven tribal families have been cultivating 24 acres of land in survey numbers 131 and 139 in Chatterjipuram, a small tribal hamlet in Rolugunta mandal.
Their names were recorded in the adangal as enjoyers of the land, but suddenly their names have been removed to accommodate the names of the pattadars, said Kiran of Ryhtu Swarajiya Vedika, who led the team.
According to Mr. Kiran, the names of the tribal persons have been removed to accommodate the names of pattadars such as Meesala Subanna, Varada Nookaraju, Chitikala Vijayarani and M. Venkata Kanakamahalakshmi.
‘Procedure ignored’
“When we asked the tahsildar, he said that he was under pressure from the pattadars to delete the names of the tribal persons and include their names in the enjoyers’ column.
“When we asked him if he had physically verified or surveyed the land to ascertain who was cultivating the land, he said that he had gone by the pattadars statement, which is not the correct procedure as per law,” Mr. Kiran added.
The tribal hamlet that was earlier known as Rajapeta adopted the name Chatterjipuram after the then Sub-Collector of Narsipatnam division helped the tribals get ‘Indiramma’ housing scheme. As a gratitude to the Sub-Collector the name of the hamlet was changed after his name.
P.S. Ajay Kumar of Swaraj Abhiyan, who was also part of the team, said that the tribals had won cases against Meesala Subanna and others in 2013 and in 2016 in Narsipatnam sub-court, based on the adangal records and now overnight the records have been changed in the Weblands.
Mr. Kiran informed The Hindu that the team will approach the District Collector after the report is ready.
