Civic group flays hand over of “pooled land” to retired babus

  • | Monday | 18th February, 2019

Visakhapatnam: The Forum for Better Visakha (FBV), a civic group in the city, denounced on Sunday the Andhra Pradesh government’s alleged decision to hand over land “pooled” from farmers in the Amaravati capital city area to retired civil servants.“I refer to GOM No. The state’s civil servants are well aware of this. Along with their applications, their affidavits should be placed in the public domain and disclose the details of their properties outside AP,” it said. The whole process of this exercise has become a means to benefit real estate business at the cost of agriculture and marginal farmers. In the process, not only the farming community but also a large number of landless tenants and agricultural workers have lost their livelihoods.

Visakhapatnam: The Forum for Better Visakha (FBV), a civic group in the city, denounced on Sunday the Andhra Pradesh government’s alleged decision to hand over land “pooled” from farmers in the Amaravati capital city area to retired civil servants.“I refer to GOM No. 75 (MA&UD) dated 14-2-2019, read with GOM No 34 (MA&UD) dated 24-1-2019, in which valuable lands forcibly snatched away from the farmers in the Amaravati capital city area are being doled out to retired civil servants,” FBV convener EAS Sarma said in a letter to AP chief secretary AC Punetha.“Either through ‘land pooling’ or by resorting to the regressive land acquisition law, the government has forcibly acquired agricultural lands from the farming community, including D-Patta land holders (many of whom belong to SC/ST/OBC groups), in the guise of a ‘public purpose’. In the process, not only the farming community but also a large number of landless tenants and agricultural workers have lost their livelihoods. The lands so acquired are being wantonly given away to foreign and domestic real estate companies and many profit-making private institutions at throwaway prices. The whole process of this exercise has become a means to benefit real estate business at the cost of agriculture and marginal farmers. The state’s civil servants are well aware of this. Some of them may even have been part of this unsavoury exercise,” Sarma, a former Union expenditure secretary, said in the letter.Sarma also said that it was highly objectionable that the government, by way of political patronage, should dispense such undue largesse to retired civil servants, by allotting land valued at crores of rupees at nominal prices. The land given was possibly the source of livelihood of a marginal farmer , a tenant or a D-Patta land assignee a couple of years ago and those displaced now struggle to find alternate livelihoods in Guntur or Vijayawada, he added.“Both government orders lack transparency, ethical strength and consistency with the twin doctrines of public trust and public equality. Issuing such orders amounts to the exercise of authority in a coloured, arbitrary manner,” the letter said.“It is bizarre that those already having highly valuable houses in Hyderabad, built with the help of etate loans, have chosen to exploit the benefit granted by the political executive. Along with their applications, their affidavits should be placed in the public domain and disclose the details of their properties outside AP,” it said.

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