SRIKAKULAM: In an attempt to acquire land in Bhavanapadu, Devunaltada and Marripadu villages for construction of a port at Bhavanapadu, the district administration has decided to conduct a comprehensive survey of the lands, structures and horticulture crops in the proposed villages. The government is mulling issuing notification for land acquisition soon after completion of the survey.
Tekkali RDO M Venkateswara Rao told TNIE that following the directives of the district joint collector, verification and enjoyment survey would be conducted in the proposed villages from Tuesday. Three teams have been deployed to conduct the survey in Bhavanapadu, Marripadu of Santhabommali mandal and Devunaltada of Vajrapukotturu mandal, Rao said.
For record, under the close watch of the JC, officials had completed the drone survey recently. Notification for the land acquisition would be released soon after completion of the survey, the RDO said.
Three revenue teams have been deployed in the villages to conduct the survey. Out of the proposed 2,300 acres required for the port facility, district revenue officials have identified 317 acres of government land at Marripadu and 296 acres at Devunaltada. Officials however, have been intensifying the efforts to complete the survey by the end of the month. Several meetings, in this connection, were earlier conducted by the revenue officials, led by joint collector KVN Chakradhar Babu, in the proposed villages.
Initially, the notification was released for the acquisition of about 5,000 acres in August 2015. After objections were raised by the people of the area in a big way, the government reduced the area of the proposed land to 2,300 acres. As has already been mentioned, AP Space Application Centre officials had conducted a survey spanning three days recently, by using drones in Bhavanapadu and adjacent villages. However, about 1,126 acres of land at Marripadu, 305 acres at Bavanapadu and 260 acres at Devunalatada are likely to be acquired for the project.