more-in Accusing the State government of being a failure in taking action on the report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that probed into the alleged land scams including encroachments, tampering of revenue records and other irregularities, former Minister Dadi Veerabhadra Rao has demanded that the report be put in the public domain. Voicing the fears of people pertaining to encroachments of private land too, he wanted an IAS officer to be appointed exclusively to prevent encroachments, inquire into pending complaints, undertake field survey of government, endowment and waqf land. ‘Officials involved’ “The SIT probed into only 344 complaints and 2,531 more are still pending with the Collector’s office. The SIT report has been gathering dust in the Secretariat for more than eight months and same is the fate of the 12 trunk-loads of documents submitted to SIT in the District Treasury office,” Mr. Veerabhadra Rao told the media here. He pointed out that the DGP, who was the Chairman of the SIT, had said that 32 private persons, political leaders in power now and in the past and 30 government officials were involved in the various irregularities. In 101 cases, departmental inquiries were recommended. He also made it clear that many of the NoCs issued to ex-servicemen’s lands were bogus and 300 acres at Madhurawada worth ?3,000 crore was mirred in several lapses, the former Minister claimed. “The TDP government is turning clod shoulders towards the ground realities and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu does not seem to be interested in any district, but Amaravati. I am at a loss to understand what prevents him from making the SIT report public,” Mr. Dadi Veerabhadra Rao said. It is clear that the people’ s representatives were involved in the land scam and not making the SIT report public is giving a scope for doubts as to whether the Chief Minister was afraid or trying to protect his party-men, he said. Even as people are worried about their properties, he alleged, the family members of the ruling party leaders were camping in five-star hotels and sending brokers to lawyers offering to resolve land issues. ‘Rampant corruption’ “Under the TDP dispensation, corruption has become the order of the day at government offices. Land acquisition turned out into a bonanza,” Mr. Veerabhadra Rao said. For assigned lands only a part of the compensation was given to farmers and the rest was being recorded in somebody else’s name. On the top of it, officials allegedly involved in irregularities were given postings in mandals with valuable lands, he alleged. Land pooling scheme Referring to the land pooling scheme, the former minister said it was a big scam as there was no sanctity to the implementation of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, he said, adding that assigned land was being taken through urban development authority for layouts.Soon meetings with former MLAs and other leaders would be organised to plan protests, he added.

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