VIJAYAWADA: The Cabinet Sub-Committee (CSC) constituted to look into irregularities in Amaravati, has found that people, who are close to TDP leaders or their benamis, allegedly committed several irregularities in acquiring assigned lands and benefitted by claiming themselves as the rightful owners of the lands.
It was found that assigned lands to an extent of 444.66 acres were taken away from the assigned landowners in the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) limits by those close to the TDP leaders.
The extent of land holdings varies from 47.39 acres to 0.86 cents, according to the sub-committee report.
The sub-committee headed by Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy submitted its report to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on December 27 and the same was put before the State Cabinet.
The government is now mulling a CBI, a CID or a Lokayukta probe into the alleged irregularities that took place during the previous TDP government.
According to the Cabinet Sub-Committee report, assigned lands were acquired in violation of the Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act (POT Act), which says that assigned lands cannot be purchased from the allotted beneficiaries (SCs and STs) by others.
The report stated that people close to the TDP leaders and their benamis (in the guise of realtors) allegedly lobbied with the then government to denotify the land they had acquired.
Later, they surrendered the lands to the CRDA under the Land Pooling Scheme and reaped benefits. “The rightful owners of assigned lands were not compensated in a rightful manner,’’ the report stated.
After fighting for nearly three years, the assigned landholders moved the High Court, which ordered the government to constitute a panel to look into their grievances.
According to the report, some top TDP leaders, their followers and benamis ‘purchased’ 338.887 acres.
The report made a mention of Kolli Shivaram, a benami of TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh, who allegedly purchased 47.39 acres of land.
Another alleged benami of Lokesh, Gummadi Suresh, purchased 42.925 acres of land, while Bulusu Srinivasa Rao, who was also shown as benami of Lokesh, allegedly bought 14.07 acres of land.
Violations of POT Act
In Nelapadu village of Thullur mandal, the total land acquired under the Land Pooling Scheme was 54.49 acres and of which 42.92 acres were bought in violation of the POT Act.
In Inavolu village, 2.88 acres of the total 5.86 acres land acquired under the Land Pooling Scheme was in violation of the POT ActIn Pitchikalapalem village, 5.74 acres of the total 14.98 acres of land given under the Land Pooling Scheme, were assigned lands, while 9.24 acres of land was encroached.
High-powered panel report in 21 days
The 16-member high-powered committee on decentralised development will submit its report in 21 days, said Municipal Administration Minister Botcha Satyanarayana on Sunday