Amaravati residents looking forward for temporary secretariat launch

Guntur: The people of the Amaravati capital region are hoping that the launch of the new temporary secretariat will result in development coming to the area. Pooled farmers are looking upon it as the Holy Grail, its establishment likely to result in an increase in land prices and enable extra income to accrue to them through various local businesses once nearly 15,000 government employees shift base.

As many as 21,500 farmers/landowners had pooled their farmlands, expecting speedy development of the region, but this has been in vain so far. They had hoped to get reconstituted/returnable plots which they could then use for their own financial gain, given the demand for land in Amaravati. But the CRDA has yet to prepare the list of reconstituted/returnable plots and distribute them, a task that will take another two to four months. The CRDA’s delay in the distribution process has led farmers/ landowners to hope that they can seek residential plots and houses from it once the secretariat starts functioning.

A majority of farmers/landowners own land up to a size of 3 acres: preparing common, developed, commercial and residential plots has therefore been a Herculean task. The CRDA officials visited various countries and states in India to study relief and rehabilitation packages. The City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) of Maharashtra, for instance, successfully established/developed 13 cities with land packages similar to LPS. The CRDA is therefore reviewing several such examples of land pooling packages to prepare its own reconstituted/ returnable plots Pooled farmers S. Sarvathoma Rao, D. Subba Rao and others lamented that the annuity of Rs 2,500 per month, paid for a year, was insufficient and they had therefore counted on getting some extra income through the reconstituted commercial and residential plots, the delay having prolonged their financial difficulties.

They added that they were planning to use their native land in the Grama Kantham limits to gain some income once the temporary secretariat began.

K. Raghava and others of Mandadam said that they had two or three houses in the village, which they were planning to turn into commercial complexes that they could rent out with the temporary secretariat’s help.