Telangana: Outer Ring Road land buy hits trouble

Hyderabad: The Telangana state government’s land pooling scheme being planned along the Warangal and Vijayawada highways to develop growth corridors has hit a roadblock as farmers are not volunteering to hand over land for realty development abetting the Outer Ring Road.

Their reluctance stems from the government's delay in handing over developed plots to farmers who gave over 700 acres for Metro Rail and Musi beautification projects nearly a decade ago.

The government is trying to showcase development of Uppal Bhagat grasslands that had acquired under LPS to convince farmers.  

The HMDA had acquired 733 acres, of which 100 acres was allotted for the Metro Rail depot at Uppal. The government had promised to allot 1,000 sq. yard plots to each farmer for each acre of land pooled.

The layout development works started in December 2012 and was completed in a year. The plots were supposed to be handed over in May 2014 but that was postponed due to the state’s bifurcation.

In all, 1,984 plots were developed on 413 acres at  Uppal Bhagat. Of this, 46.25 per cent was allotted to plots, 34.92 per cent to roads, 16.31 per cent was vacant space and 2.52 per cent was for infra.

The Uppal Bhagat farmers are agitating for the plots. The TS government has proposed to procure land from owners and develop layouts abutting the ORR.