Projects on hold for want of land

The government has not been able to complete land acquisition even for one-third of the 36 projects. It had issued GO No.123 in July to make land acquisition easier so as to take up the irrigation projects.

The government promised to provide compensation and rehabilitation to the affected landowners and powers were accorded to district collectors to fix and pay compensation on the spot instead of the time consuming movement of files between district headquarters and the Secretariat for approvals.

However, the government recently came out with revised orders scrapping the ‘rehabilitation clause’ on the grounds that it was purchasing lands from the owners at market rate and there was no need to provide further rehabilitation.

With this, the land acquisition process has been facing obstacles with owners refusing to part with their land unless the government provides them rehabilitation.

The process was going on smoothly but has been facing hurdles since December after the rehabilitation clause was removed. Those who had agreed to hand over their lands earlier are now shying away from giving their land as they fear they will not get the rehabilitation package.

Besides, the Revenue department does not have sufficient surveyors to take up land surveys for land acquisition, which has added to the delay. Out of 1,200 surveyors’ posts, about 450 are lying vacant.

Over 20,000 survey applications are lying pending with the department due to shortage of surveyors.

“The policy of purchasing lands directly from farmers is encouraging. A majority of the farmers are happy with this. There are issues only with some farmers which will be resolved. Without farmers’ support, we would not have acquired 70 per cent of the total land required so far,” said irrigation minister T. Harish Rao.

The government is also addressing the issue of shortage of surveyors. It is planning to utilise the services of private surveyors and taking up recruitment of new surveyors.