Farmers furious over amendment to Amaravati master plan

VIJAYAWADA: The state government has amended the Amaravati master plan in order to provide houses to poor people over 900 acres of land in Amaravati and issued a gazette inviting objections and suggestions. Earlier efforts by the government to allot lands proved futile as pro-Amaravati farmers had filed a petition and the High Court cancelled the order. Now the YSRC government has amended the APCRDA Act to provide house sites. The last date for filing objections and suggestions on the changes to the master plan is November 11. Meanwhile, pro-Amaravati supporters backed by Telugu Desam are planning to file objections to the amendments.

The government has formulated a new zone-R-5-in the capital region, which will have over 900 acres of land. They are within the boundaries of Krishnayapalem, Nidamarru, Kuragallu in Mangalagiri mandal, Manddam and Ainavolu villages in Thullur mandal.

TD leaders claimed that their government had established an S-3 zone for the poor in the capital with the aim of building houses for 14, 000 poor families. They said that construction of 5, 000 TIDCO houses were also completed.

Amaravati JAC steering committee member P. Sudhakar and others alleged that the state government had cheated Amaravati farmers and poor people by stopping S-3 zone.

The leaders recalled that when the CRDA Act was amended, farmers had approached the High Court claiming that the government had committed contempt of court. They said the YSRC government challenged the High Court verdict in support of Amaravati in the Supreme Court which would come up for hearing in the first week of November.

However, the government’s new orders are in violation of the HC verdict, they said.

Ruling party MLA Perni Nani and other leaders claimed that there was nothing wrong in providing houses to the poor on government lands. They alleged that the TD government had stopped developmental works but the YSRC government is constructing Amaravati as the legislative capital.