Land pooling for new capital opposed
Ministers, MLAs have assets in proposed capital region
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-10-07 06:27 GMT
Vijayawada: The land pooling and land acquirement proposal of AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for setting up the new capital has caused upheaval in villages in Krishna and Guntur districts. The villagers are conducting meetings in their villages every day.
Backing the farmers are several ministers, legislators, MPs and former ministers who are natives of these villages, having land and homes there. MP Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, hailing from Unguturu in Amaravati mandal of Guntur district, has family lands and residence in the village as declared in his election affidavit.
MP Sujana Chowdary belonging to Kanchika-cherla of Krishna district, did not mention the local assets in election affidavit but recently admitted that he has bought lands in Kanchi-kacherla area.
Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao also hails from Kanchika-cherla, but lives in Goll-apudi village of Krishna district. He also owns land and residence in Kanchikacherla village. Ravela Kishorebabu hails from Ravela village in Tadikonda mandal of Guntur district and has a house in the same village.
MLA Kommalapati Sridhar’s native is Pedaku-rapadu in Guntur district. He is into real estate business and his companies have lands in nearby areas of the proposed capital area. Though living in Guntur city, he has residence and valuable lands in his native area as mentioned in the election affidavit.
MLA A. Ramakrishna Reddy owns an apartment in Mangalagiri town and has purchased lands in Tadik-onda mandal, declared his assets in the election affidavit. Guntur one MLA Mustafa and former minister Moham-med Jhani’s native village is Tadikonda and have relatives living there. Former minister M. Hanaumantha Rao’s native village is Mangalagiri where he owns lands and business establishments.
N. Venkata Rao, a native of Venkatapalem, asked local representatives to announce their stand on the ongoing developments.
Former MP Yalamanchali Sivaji demanded that the government construct the capital city only in government lands instead of pooling lands from farmers.
Participating in a round-table meet on Land Acquisition Act and capital proposals conducted by Dalit Bahujana Front here on Monday, Mr Sivaji said that there is no need to construct the capital city in one-lakh acres. Already, 23,000 acres of government lands are available between the cities of Vijayawada and Guntur, he added.
He said that some of them have diverted Ch-ief Minister N. Chan-drababu Naidu on land pooling plans. If the CM goes for land pooling, some other land scams would surface in future, he warned.
Mr Sivaji asked the government first to ann-ounce the exact capital location and land pooling policy clearly. If government collects some private lands for capital, they should provide equal land and compensation for farmers as per market value, he added.
Meanwhile, Janmaboomi programme turned into a clash between the activists of the YSR Congress and the Telugu Desam at Remmanapudi village in Pammarru mandal of Krishna district on Monday. At one stage the activists of the two parties abused each other and threw the chairs.
The clash arose when YSRC local MLA U. Kalpana objected for inviting the TD leaders on to the dais. TD leader and Pammarru segment in-charge Varala Ramaiah also opposed it. Later, the activists of the two parties abused each other when MPs Sujana Chowdary, K. Narayana and minister K. Srinivas were also on the dais. However, the police controlled the situation.
MP Sujana Chowdary also participated in various Janmaboomi meetings at Penamaluru and Pammarru and said that CM N. Chandrababu Naidu would develop the state. The farmers need not worry over government schemes and promises, he added. Especially, the farmers of capital area would also get better package from land pooling, he said.
Dalit Bahujana Front secretary K. Vinaya Kumar also demanded that the government should not collect lands from farmers. He said that the down-trodden sections, small farmers and agriculture workers might face challenges from capital construction developments. The capital construction should be permitted in limited area, he said and added that lands should not be acquired for private companies.
Dalit Bahujana Front leaders Neelam Pullaiah, Bodapti Babu Rao, social worker G. Ravi Kumar were also present.