Etala Rajendar slams Telangana govt over Dundigal land row

Hyderabad: BJP Malkajgiri MP Etala Rajendar condemned the alleged attempt of the state government to take back 490 acres of land from farmers in Dundigal on the city outskirts, which had been assigned to them 50 years ago and which they were cultivating since then.

Speaking after visited a camp where the farmers were protesting, Rajendar said that when the land was assigned to farmers, it was full of boulders, bushes and hardly cost less than Rs 500 per acre. The farmers levelled the land using their money and drilled bore wells for irrigation.

Now, with land costs spiralling, the state government was acting like a real estate broker and trying by all means to take over the land from the farmers, Rajendar charged.

The BJP MP said that the earlier BRS government had acquired land from the farmers through the land-polling process, giving back just 600 yards of levelled land to farmers for every acre acquired. The Congress had promised to look into such unfair methods of acquiring land but was doing the same after coming to power.

The Revenue Act ensured ownership when a farmer cultivates a piece of land for 12 years, Rajendar said. But, the Congress government was trying to take over land which was given 50 years ago.