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Powerful leaders being spared from land pooling?

Guntur: Farmers who are being asked to part with their land for the capital city are alleging that some villages are being exempted only to safeguard the interests of some VIPs.

Farmers are venting their ire against officials visiting them to prevail upon them to part with their land for the capital city.

According to farmers, one village that is missing from the list is Pedaparimi and they do not see this as unintentional error. Pedaparimi is located between Neerukonda and Nekkallu villages, both identified for land pooling.

One can reach Nekkallu of Tullur mandal from Neerukonda, Kuragallu of Mangalagiri rural mandal only after crossing Pedaparimi, which is located at the centre of both ends.

The story doing the rounds about Pedaparimi being removed from the list is that a ruling party MP acquired about 500 acres of land in the village. Farmers think the interests of bigwigs are being protected by excluding the villages where they have considerable extent of land.

“It appears that the list is being prepared to benefit some influential leaders and realtors. It lacks transparency and direction,” said a farmer Sambasiva Rao of Dondapadu village.

Farmers allege that the government was bent upon giving high returns to realtors and select industrialists who are on the capital city advisory board at the cost of small and marginal farmers.

“The government is raising false hopes about land rates zooming to Rs 1 lakh per sq yard after the completion of capital. If it’s so confident why not government pay us just Rs 50,000 per sq yard now and reap the huge profits after completion of capital,” demanded a farmer, N Venkatapathi Raju.

Farmers also wonder why another village, Harischandrapuram, of Tullur mandal is not to be found in the list despite its proximity to Krishna river bank. The neighbouring villages Rayapudi, Dondapdu, Lingayapalem, Modha Lingayapalem have been in list for land pooling.

Farmers suspect that Harischandrapuram is missing from the list because two TDP MPs have acquired land in the village. Similarly, Venkatapalem is left out allegedly to protect the interests of a BJP MP who owns land there.

Venkatapalem is located on the banks of the Krishna river and is very close to Mandadam, Malkapuram, Tallayapalem that fi gure in the list. “We do not want the capital here if we have to forgo our land,” asserts Abbaraju Sambasiva Rao, a farmer.

He said farmers hope to benefit if the capital comes up in government land.

“Instead, the government is acquiring our land to benefi t the realtors,” alleged Malleswara Rao, another farmer.

When Guntu RDO Bhaskara Naidu threatened that the government would not allow them to sell their land for next 30 years if they did not fall in line, a farmer retorted: “We would rather continue to cultivate our land.”

While a few farmers expressed their willingness to part with their land during the interaction with the revenue officials on Wednesday, a majority of them set several conditions for parting with their land.

Source: TimesOfIndia

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