Telangana relaxes water rule for Dalit bastis

Adilabad: To give a boost to the Dalit Basti Scheme, the state government has relaxed the norms regarding “availability of water sources” (sufficient ground water), which was a must for land purchases.

Till date, the department of Ground Water would conduct tests on the lands to be purchased for the Dalit Basti scheme and thus many lands were rejected due to lack of ground water resulting from drought conditions in the last two years.

Collector Mr M. Jagan Mohan said that the state government has given permission to the district to purchase land without taking the ground water table into consideration as most of the crops in the district are rain fed and the ground water table doesn’t make much difference in cultivating these crops.

There had been a slowdown in the implementation of the Dalit Basti Scheme for a while as there were some irregularities in purchasing land in Mancherial and Sirpur (T) Assembly Constituencies, said the collector, adding that some people had hiked the land price to Rs 6 lakh per acre, which was actually purchased for Rs 3 land acre, before selling to the government.

So far, 673 acre purchased at Rs 22.8 crore, has been distributed to 230 beneficiaries under the Dalit Basti Scheme in the district. It has come to light that some government land was also purchased for the scheme as sellers and officials had colluded in some places.

Officials had earlier rejected hundreds of acres of land identified at various places based on reports given by the Ground Water department, stating that there was no availability of ground water sources.

Now 2,000 acre of land has become available for purchase and distribution under the Dalit Basti Scheme in Adilabad district. The Ground Water department had cleared 1,026 acre by the end of Augusts for purchase in the district. Most land was purchased at Jainad, Tasmi, Talamadugu, Bela, Kagaznagar, Bajarhatnoor, Kubheer, Kotapalli and Sarangapoor mandals in the district.