Medak farmers wait for money

Hyderabad: It was double whammy for farmers who gave land for the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project in Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s home district Medak. 

Farmers were yet to receive compensation from the government even a year after officials took consent letters to acquire land. Worse still, the agriculture land has been lying vacant since then as farmers could not take up farming as per the agreement entered into with the government.

With this, the loss for farmers is mounting. They are unable to take up farming on the one side and not getting land compensation on the other.

The government acq-uired 606 acres, mostly in Narsapur mandal, but failed to disburse compensation. Worr-ied farmers are running after people’s representatives and revenue officials for relief. Some of them apprised revenue officials in the Secretariat of their plight and sought relief at the earliest.

Officials have not even finalised the compensation amount for 127 acres so far, leaving farmers deeply worried. For 480 acres the amount fixed was Rs 26 crore, but not a single rupee had been paid so far.

Officials fixed a compensation of Rs 7.5 lakh per acre for patta land and Rs 5.5 lakh for assig-ned land. Farmers co-mplained that officials forcibly took consent letters from them thou-gh the compensation amount was not final-ised. They urged officials to at least allow them to take up agriculture till the compensation was paid.

But this was rejected outright by officials, stating that the canal works for Kaleshwar-am project would commence anytime and they could not take up farming at this stage.

Farmers have been in agitation in front of RDO frequently dema-nding compensation. They complained that Narsapur RDO Venka-teshwarlu had expres-sed his inability to speed up the process and said he had referred the proposals to the government for approval.“Once approved, the government will release the amount and compensation will be paid fast. Farmers need not worry as we will begin work only after compensation is paid,” Mr Venkateshwarlu said.

But farmers are agitated. “They acquired land on a war footing. The same speed and concern should be shown even for payment of compensation. Farmers have suffered huge losses with no agriculture and no compensation. They lost three crops in a year. If this is the situation in CM’s home district, one can imagine the plight of farmers in other areas,” said TS Farmers Association secretary T. Sagar.