Forcing ryots in Capital area on crops flayed
VIJAYAWADA: Farmers' leader and former agriculture minister Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao faulted the government's land pooling scheme for acquiring land for the capital region of AP alleging that the government was not only forcibly taking away farmers' land but was also forcing farmers to go without crops after April.
Rao, who claims to be a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader even today, told a Jana Vignana Vedika-organised news conference here that it was his responsibility to force TDP government to make a course correction if it strayed from the path of protecting the interests of its subjects.
'Land-pooling essentially is a scheme under which only land voluntarily offered by the farmers can be taken by the government. So far, the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) has acquired about 10,000 acres of land under the scheme, but the CRDA special commissioner says that no crop can be raised in the entire land notified for acquisition. This is outrightly illegal,' Rao added.
The farmers' leader said that as the Centre had made it clear that it might not fund the Rs 1.2 lakh-cr new capital of AP, the farmers were not sure of the worth of the 'developed land' that the state government had promised them in lieu of the land they had parted with so far. Also, as the construction of the new capital would take a long time, it would mean a long and agonizing wait for the farmers, he added.
As the CRDA could so far acquire only about 9,000 to 10,000 acres, it did not have the right to force the farmers to go without crops in the entire 52,000 acres which the CRDA intended to acquire under land-pooling scheme. As the majority of farmers were small and marginal ones having one or two-acre holdings, life would become miserable for them, he explained.
Rao demanded that the government should allow crops in the entire area other than 10,000 acres for which it had taken consent letters from the farmers for acquisition under the land pooling scheme.
News Posted: 1 February, 2015
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