Missing' Mudapaka land records found

Visakhapatnam: Revenue records of assigned lands belonging to Mudapaka village in Pendurthy mandal that were said to be ‘missing’ have been ‘discovered.’ The records now indicate that the properties were purchased by real estate mafia at dirt cheap.

After it was widely reported in these columns that realtors have bought the rights of the assigned lands from the farmers in Mudapaka keeping in view the fact that the plotted land would be worth crores of rupees in compensation that would be given by Vuda in lieu of surrendering them under land pooling scheme, the issue was raised in the Assembly by BJP north MLA, Mr P. Vishnukumar Raju, during the last session.

The issue was discussed in the AP Assembly in the last sessions after which Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu asked the district collector to look into the issue.

District collector Pravin Kumar and joint-collector G. Sujana visited the village recently and were informed by the revenue officials that the records were missing.  The district collector expressed displeasure and ordered an inquiry into the missing of the records warning stern action against those found responsible for the missing records.

Revenue officials immediately swung into action and the next day, those who had feigned ignorance on the knowledge of the missing land records provided a report to the collector the next day that they have found the same within the office.

“There is a need for a detailed inquiry by an agency like CID into the Mudapaka lands issue. Unless there is an in-depth inquiry held into this kind of missing and finding of records within the office, such incidents will happen again and again. The GO issued earlier into other land pooling schemes in the district should also be cancelled as there are allegations that there also some private realtors played the swing. The government can re issue a G O with certain riders that farmers can only directly deal with Vuda instead of middlemen,” said Mr Vishnukumar Raju.