KCR buckles under pressure, puts master plans on hold

HYDERABAD: With pressure mounting from protesting farmers from several districts in the election year, the BRS government led by K. Chandrashekar Rao, who is campaigning with the ‘Ab Ki Baar Kisan Sarkar’ slogan for the 2024 elections, has decided to put a hold on approvals for ‘master plans’ for municipalities and municipal corporations.

After Kamareddy and Jagtial municipalities passed resolutions rejecting draft master plans and referring them to the state government, the Chief Minister reviewed the master plans with senior officials on Friday. He reportedly gave them instructions to keep approvals for master plans on hold indefinitely and asked them to draft revised master plans taking the concerns of farmers into consideration.

Officials sources in Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) said that party MLAs of several constituencies represented to CM as well as municipal minister K.T.Rama Rao on the growing resentment of farmers against the BRS government for expediting master plans to acquire agriculture lands.

As Assembly polls are nearing, these master plans would have adverse impact on the BRS political prospects in the state and it would be better to keep the master plans on hold at least until Assembly polls will be over in December this year. The party MLAs expressed concern that the opposition parties have joined the farmers agitation programmes against land acquisition for master plans and that they were facing a tough political situation in their constituencies with farmers rallying behind the opposition parties.

There are seven master plans that are ready for approval and another 15 master plans are being sent to the state government for approval. Master plans will only be approved if there are no objections, sources said. "Had detailed review with Kamareddy collector regarding the draft Master Plan for Kamareddy today. There's a need to engage with farmers and landowners especially in erstwhile Gram Panchayats now merged with Kamareddy and the draft plan is put on hold indefinitely until the process is done through consensus," tweeted Arvind Kumar, special chief secretary (MAUD).

In light of Telangana's rapid urbanisation since the state's creation in 2014, the state government has sought master plans for 91 municipalities and corporations to ensure planned development of urban areas. New master plans are being prepared for 68 of these municipalities, while existing master plans need to be upgraded for the remaining municipalities' because they were prepared decades ago. The surrounding gram panchayats and towns were merged, leading to significant

growth in those municipalities and corporations.

Of this, the master plans for Mahabubabad,  Andhole-Jogipet, Kollapur, Nagarkurnool, Achampet, Sathupally, Bhupalapally and Devarakonda have been completed and ready for the government's approval while another 15 master plans are nearing completion. However, approvals for these master plans will now be kept on hold indefinitely.

Officials sources in the BRS said that party MLAs of several constituencies represented to CM as well as municipal minister K.T.Rama Rao on the growing resentment of locals and farmers against the BRS government for expediting master plans to acquire agriculture lands.