Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao has land and residence in Kanchikacherla village
Some site-owners are even winding up the cattle breeding and are removing the backyard gardens to convert them into plots so that they can make some quick-money in this market.
Hyderabad: The land pooling and land acquirement proposal of AP CM N. Chandrababu Naidu for setting up the new capital has caused upheaval in villages in Krishna and Guntur districts. Villagers are conducting meetings in their villages every day. Backing the farmers are several ministers, legislators, MPs and former ministers who are natives of these villages, and owners of land and homes there.
MP Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, hailing from Unguturu in Amaravathi mandal of Guntur district, has family lands and residence in the village as declared in his election affidavit. MP Sujana Chowdary, hailing from Kanchikacherla of Krishna district, recently admitted that he has bought lands in Kanchikacherla area.
Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao also hails from Kanchikacherla, but lives in Gollapudi village of Krishna district. He also has land and residence in Kanchikacherla village.
Ravela Kishorebabu, hails from Ravela village in Tadikonda mandal of Guntur district. He has a house in the same village. MLA Kommalapati Sridhar is from Pedakurapadu in Guntur district. He is into real estate business and his companies have lands in the nearby areas of the proposed capital area. Interestingly, Mr Babu and Mr Rao are in the state Cabinet committee for land acquisition for the new capital.
MLA A Ramakrishna Reddy owns an apartment in Mangalagiri town and has purchased lands in Tadikonda mandal, declared his assets in the election affidavit. Guntur one MLA Mustafa and former minister Mohammed Jhony's native village is Tadikonda and has relatives living there. Former minister M. Hanaumantha Rao's native village is Mangalagiri where he owns lands and business establishments.
N.Venkata Rao, a native of Venkatapalem village asked local representatives to announce their stand on the ongoing developments.
Every villager is debating how these ministers, MPs, legislators and former ministers will react to the land acquisition proposals. Ministers Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and Ravela Kishore Babu are in the cabinet committee for land acquisition for the capital. They could well be a boon or bane in the ongoing developments, says political analyst A. Brahmaiah.
Meanwhile, experts have pointed out that to construct the new capital at “zero cost”, as envisaged, the Andhra Pradesh government will get only around 16,500 acres for construction of buildings for every 1 lakh acre of land pooled, after returning developed land to the owner and developers.
As per the rules, 25 per cent of the land needs to be set aside for roads, 10 per cent will go towards common facilities and another 10 per cent has to be kept as open land. After 45 per cent of the land is demarcated, the actual available land will be 55,000 acres (if 1 lakh acre is pooled).
Of this 55,000 acres, 40 per cent (22,000 acres) will have to be returned to the owners and the government will be left with 33,000 acre. But the government has also proposed to hand over the construction of buildings to builders by giving 50 per cent of the land to them. This means that the government and builders will get 16,500 acre each.
Thus, if the government needs 25,000 acres for the capital, it will have to pool approximately 2 lakh acres. Vice president (South) of National Real Estate Development Council, Raidu Chalapathi Rao, said that the proposed method would wipe ut agricultural land. He said it would be better for the state to acquire the land outright for construction of the capital and the task of construction of buildings should be given to contractors.
But after land pooling, if the government wants to give the land to developers to develop the land on their own cost, it has to give a minimum of 400 yard per acre to the developers. As mentioned earlier, after developing the 1 lakh acres, only 55,000 acre will be available. Of this, 495 acre will have to be given to the developers (as per the 400 yard per acre norm). In this case 54,505 acre will be available to share between land owners and the government.
In this process, if the government requires 25,000 acre for constructing the new capital, it will have to pool 2 lakh acre.
Vice president (South) of National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO) Mr Raidu Chalapathi Rao said that the proposed government method would lead to valuable agricultural land being wiped out. He said it would be better for the government to acquire the land outright for construction of the capital and the task of construction of buildings should be given to contractors.
He said for this the government would have to raise some money.
He added that high rise buildings were not advisable as they were more costly to build and to maintain.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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