Land pooling for Amaravati put on hold

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to put on hold the process for the pooling of around 42,226 acres of additional land for the second phase of Amaravati capital city development, following resistance from the farmers in the villages, officials familiar with the development said on Friday. Land pooling for Amaravati put on hold
The decision was taken at the state cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on July 9. 'The pooling of additional land for the capital was to be decided by the cabinet, but it was decided to keep the decision in abeyance, as some ministers expressed apprehensions over the negative fallout of the decision,' an official of the municipal administration and urban development (MAUD) department, privy to the matter said.
He said the cabinet decided to refer the matter to a group of ministers that is currently engaged in allotment of land to various entities in Amaravati capital city to 'talk to and convince the farmers.'
It was only July 1 that state municipal administration and urban development principal secretary Suresh Kumar issued the gazette notification on Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Land Pooling Scheme (Formulation and Implementation) Rules – 2025.
The notification was aimed at acquiring the required land from farmers belonging to 28 villages in four revenue blocks of Guntur and Palnadu districts around the present Amaravati capital region for the development of additional infrastructure projects like airport, railway lines and roads.
It was proposed to acquire 7,257 acres from the farmers under the second phase of land pooling system in Tadikonda mandal (block), 10,878 acres in Thullur mandal, 19,504 acres in Amaravati mandal and 4,586 in Pedakurapadu mandal. 'The lands will be acquired from the famers after taking their written consent by conducting gram sabhas,' said Kumar.
As per the notification, the authorities would invite objections and suggestions from the stakeholders and they must verify their ownership and rights, and then submit a surrender form.
An APCRDA functionary confirmed that the conduct of gram sabhas in the villages where the land was proposed to be acquired was put on hold till further orders from the government. 'It is for the government to take a call on the additional land acquisition,' the functionary said.
During the cabinet meeting, some of the ministers brought to the notice of the chief minister that the farmers were raising a lot of queries in the gram sabhas and opposing the additional land acquisition, even as the first phase of Amaravati work has just started, said the MAUD official quoted above.
'Let us first concentrate on completing the first phase of Amaravati in the next three years, which will create a positive image for the government. Till now, the farmers who gave away their lands to the first phase of the capital city project haven't got their returnable plots and there was no visible development of infrastructure in their layouts,' a cabinet minister said.
Another minister pointed out that if the layouts in the first phase were completed and fully developed plots given to the farmers concerned, it would give some kind of assurance for the farmers in the surrounding villages. 'We can then think of pooling additional land for Amaravati 2.0,' he said.