HYDERABAD: M Akshaya, a teenager from Mamidgi village of Nyalkal mandal, has been worried for seven years, when the government started trying to acquire her ancestral land that falls under the National Investment and Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ).
Since then, as registrations and mutations of lands are prohibited in 18 villages including at Mamidgi, the girl’s family has not been able to either utilise the land or sell it. This has hindered them from arranging Akshaya’s sister’s marriage, and to find a match for Akshaya’s elder brother. Like this family, the lives of thousands of people whose lands fall under NIMZ have been adversely affected.
“They say lands here are uncultivable, but there are 850 borewells irrigating lands with 100 per cent drip irrigation. About 35,000 tonnes of sugarcane has been produced in Nyalkal mandal alone, where vegetables are also grown in vast areas,” Akshaya asserts.
Activists of ‘Telangana Bhoo Nirvasithula Sangham’ held a round-table meeting at Somajiguda press club on Sunday, November 7, 2021, after the Union Ministry for Environment and Climate Change directed the State government to halt land acquisition for NIMZ as it did not have environmental permissions.
Activists from various organisations have resolved to pressurise the State government to stop forceful land acquisition. They demand that the government should acquire land only if they need it for a larger public interest through Land Acquisition (Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act) of 2013.
Addressing the gathering, Professor M Kodandaram, president of Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS), called for a dharna against land acquisition on December 10 in Hyderabad, on the occasion of Human Rights Day.