VIJAYAWADA : Social activist Pandaleneni Srimannarayana fears that the State government was trying to remove all slums in Amaravati to ensure that they would not be sticking out like sore thumbs when the futuristic capital of Amaravati materialises.
“This is the reason why the government has allowed TDP leaders and other moneyed sections to purchase assigned lands under occupation of Dalits and minorities so that the look of the Greenfield city would not be unpleasant,” he said and pointed out that it was one of the conditions of the master developers of Singapore.
“They do not want any slums or settlements of poor interspersed among the high rise buildings,” Srimannarayana said at a news conference here on Wednesday.
The social activist said already, by terrorising the Dalits that their lands would be taken over since government is the owner of assigned lands, the TDP leaders and other moneyed sections had purchased their lands for a song and even had them registered though it was illegal.
When the issue came to light in the past, the government ordered an inquiry and suspended sub-registrar concerned but later it had reinstated him quietly at some other place, he said.
‘No profiteering at the cost of farmers’
He also cautioned the farmers not to gloat over the allotment of plots to them in lieu of the lands surrendered by them to the government in Amaravati. The government has not yet handed over allotment letters to them, he said and argued that the delay was on account of the actual intention of the government to change the location of plots in future and provide them at least 25 km away from their lands which they had surrendered under the directions of the the master developers of Singapore, he said.
Srimannarayana said that Rs 3,000 monthly pension announced by the government for farm workers who have been thrown out of employment following taking over of 33,000 acres under land pooling in Amaravati was woefully inadequate and even this scheme did not cover all. There were at least 1.6 lakh labourers at the rate of five per acre of the 33,000 acres but the pension scheme covered only 25,000 labourers, he said.
Seeds of discontent
Referring to Muchumarri lift irrigation schemes inaugurated in Kurnool district, the social activist said that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was more on rhetoric and less on substance when he addressed a gathering there the other day. “Unless the scheme pumps water at the rate of 4,000 cusecs into the approach channel of KC canal from the foreshore of Srisailam reservoir, it would not be of any use. But the present lift scheme has only two pumps which have the capacity of lifting water at the rate of 250 cusecs each,” he said and wondered how Naidu could say that Muchumarri would turn the drought-affected Rayalaseema into a land of milk and honey.
He said Naidu, by refusing to take representation from Rayalaseema Parirakshana Samiti and on top of it keeping its founder president Byreddy Rajasekhara Reddy under house arrest, was only strengthening separate Rayalaseema movement which is in its nascent stage now.