Amaravati development: Start-up plan seems wind up' to villagers

Amaravati: Fear haunts the residents of the Krishna river front villages of the Amaravati capital region as they don't know if their villages will continue to exist in the future.

The new Start Up area proposal by the Singapore consortium under the Swiss Challenge system has turned a threat to the existence of Lingayapalem and Uddandarayunipalem.

The Start Up project will be initiated in three phases on 684 hectares of land in the two villages, which are located on a bank of the Krishna river, areas that the Singapore consortium chose.

The residents of villages located on the riverfront, such as Borupalem, Abbarajupalem, Tallayapalem and Venkatapalem, are worried about the existence of their villages in the future as foreign companies find such areas suitable for development.

The CRDA had pooled nearly 600 acres from farmers in Uddandarayunipalem and 990 acres of farmland in Lingayapalem. It also pooled 385 acres in Borupalem, 731 acres in Abbarajupalem and 1463 acres of farmland in Venkatapalem.

Representatives from Singapore, China, Japan and other foreign countries who visited the Amaravati capital region had shown interest in the riverfront areas.

The Singapore consortium, consisting of Ascendas-Singbridge and Sembcorp, proposed a Start Up project under the Swiss Challenge system and asked the CRDA to provide clear land without any trees or constructions, including religious structures, to develop the Start Up area in three phases in the next 20 years.

A CRDA official said on condition of anonymity that it had earlier too tried to relocate the two villages for the government's core capital, but the villagers' protest had halted them in their tracks.

But now, with matters coming under the control of the government and CRDA due to pooling of the majority of the land in the Amaravati capital region, the government agreed to hand over 684 hectares of land with clear fields so that the shifting of the existing residential areas would be inevitable in the future.

Local residents, S. Venkateswarlu and others said that they cooperated with the CRDA and state government on the assurance of allowing their villages in the Amaravati capital region to remain, but the conditions seemed to change.

They were determined to not allow the government to relocate their villages. Mangalagiri MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy predicted that the government would gradually relocate Borupalem, Abbarajupalem, Tallayapalem and Venkatapalem villages for foreign companies from Singapore and elsewhere.

He said it was the right of the local people to live in their native villages and their relocation for a Start Up project should not be done. He said that a team of YSRC members would visit Amaravati and meet those who were affected by these plans.