Vijayawada: Land aquisition for Metro rail opposed

Vijayawada: Land acquisition notification for 70 acres given by Krishna district administration for the first phase of metro rail project in city is turning controversial. Farmers of Nidamanuru and commercial space owners at Karl Marx Road (Eluru Road) have started agitations against the notification as 90 per cent of the notification covers their lands for the construction of Metro terminal at Nidamanuru.

Amaravati Metro Rail Corporation, which initially suffered due to scarcity of funds has now acquired funds from various programmes and heading to start works in the shortest possible time. District administration with the orders of the state government had speeded up the process of land acquisition for the project and gave a preliminary notification for land acquisition.

In-charge sub-collector Chakkarapani faced a bitter experience in a recent meeting with farmers and landowners. Farmers seriously opposed the notification and clarified that they don’t want to lose their valuable lands for the Metro Rail Project. “We will be the ultimate losers with the land acquisition. Government had issued a caveat which killed our right of approaching the court. This is nothing but killing democracy. Government can’t grab our lands by terrifying us. We will agitate till our death on this issue,” said Yalamanchili Raje-ndra Kumar, a farmer from Nidamanuru.

Residents of Eluru Road were also not happy with the Metro project and said that it is not necessary for the city. “We have already lost half of our properties for Eluru Road extension in 1997. Exte-nding the road for Metro Project will kill our habitation. Killing livelihood of poor and middle class in the name of development is not acceptable,” said K. Bhagavanna-rayana, a shop owner at Eluru Road. No compensation can fill the loss as scent land in Eluru Road costs around '2 lakh and government is proposing to give one-fourth of the market value, he said.