No family left for relief in 427 notifications: AP government to Hyderabad HC

Hyderabad: The AP government on Monday informed the Hyderabad High Court that there were no eligible persons under the project-affected category in 427 notifications out of the 448 issued for land acquisition for various projects in the state.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice K Vijaya Lakshmi was dealing with a PIL by AP Agricultural Workers Union represented by its secretary Venkateswarlu challenging the action of the authorities in resorting to displace the affected families under the various projects without announcing the resettlement and rehabilitation packages.

The bench on April 24 found fault with the method adopted by the AP government in identifying the project-affected families and directed it to furnish a list of relief measures taken in the 600 notifications issued for land acquisition in the state.

Ms. Rekha Rani, special commissioner with resettlement and rehabilitation department of AP filed an affidavit stating that a re-survey was to be ordered in 14 notifications and in seven notifications they have provided relief to 529 affected families.

Mr. Dammalapati Srinivas, advocate general of AP told the court there were no project affected families in 427 as in those notifications the land parcels are in smaller in size and there were no artisans, agriculture labourers or other people who depended on those small parcels. Referring that the state government has issued 600 notifications including the 448 notifications, he submitted that they have conducted door to door survey to identify the affected families.

Reminding that the HC had directed to provide R&R packages to the affected families under 152 notifications by the end of May this year, the AG told the court that they have identified 1,755 affected families in 133 notifications and some more time is needed to identify such families in remaining 19 notifications.