SIDDIPET: Several residents of Gudatipally and surrounding villages, who face displacement from their homes due to the Gouravelli project construction work, are losing hope of receiving compensation and government support. Despite several agitations for due compensation, the villagers allege, the government turned a deaf ear to their demands and proceeded with the project work under police protection.
The closure of the roads leading to Gudatipally from surrounding villages and filling of a well with debris so that the residents cannot access drinking water, have forced many villagers to move to the temporary tents they have set up at Nandaram village, about five km from Gudatipally. Some residents have even demolished their homes and left the village, lock, stock and barrel. Some even took with them the windows and doors of their homes.
While some residents are living in the tents they have set up near the site where they are building their own houses at Nandaram, others, mostly women, who have stayed back at Gudatipally are continuing their protest at the panchayat office after police removed their dharna camp at the project ayacut site, demanding compensation as per R&R package. They are said to be pressured by the government in various ways to move out.
The oustees complain that MLA V Satish Kumar has failed to keep his promise to help provide compensation to around five hundred people in the village. Village Sarpanch Baddam Rajireddy sat on a hunger strike demanding justice for the displaced residents, but the government did not respond.
Tribals living in the thandas around Gudatipally are also losing hope of getting double bedroom houses the MLA promised to have constructed by spending money from his constituency funds.
After the authorities closed the well in the village, Sarpanch Rajireddy has installed a motor at an agricultural well and is providing drinking water to around 70 families in the village. Rajireddy has filed a petition in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) against the government for undertaking the irrigation project construction without environmental clearance.
He hopes that the tribunal will provide justice to the displaced residents. He also accuses the authorities of indirectly putting pressure on the residents by destroying the drinking water pipelines in the village. The government has not yet provided compensation to the farmers for 82 acres.