Hyderabad: Despite the High Court striking down GO 123 on Wednesday, the Telangana state government is firm on going ahead with the order to acquire land for irrigation projects.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is learnt to have told ministers and officials that the government would address all the issues raised by the HC and incorporate the provisions on resettlement and rehabilitation in GO 123 itself, but not acquire land as per the Centre’s Land Acquisition Act, 2013, which was cumbersome. He opined that it would be better to go for an appeal against the HC’s orders after these deficiencies were rectified.
Mr Rao is said to have remarked that some vested interests who were trying to obstruct TS irrigation projects were “misinterpreting” HC orders as if the court had found fault with the entire land acquisition policy of the state government while the reality was that the court had found fault with the GO for lacking provisions on R&R packages for landless labourers like artisans, tenant farmers etc., who will be affected by land acquisition.
The CM stated that it would be impossible to meet irrigation project deadlines if the Centre’s law was implemented for land acquisition as it would take years. He directed revenue officials to redraft the GO 123 provisions to prevent legal problems in future. He also asked the law department to suggest measures for the purpose.
The CM observed that the government has acquired 25,000 acre so far without any trouble barring a few incidents over the Mallanna Sagar issue, mostly fuelled by Opposition parties. This proved that there were no issues with GO 123 and it needed to be continued to acquire lands faster to meet project deadlines.
Mr Rao stated that land acquisition play-ed a crucial role for speedy completion of irrigation projects and it was for this reason that the previous TDP and Congress governments could not complete projects even decades after they were conceived, due to pending land acquisition.
He said the TRS government was committed to irrigate one crore acre in TS within four years as promised by completing ongoing and new projects as scheduled. He expressed confidence that once the deficiencies pointed out by HC were rectified, there would be no problem.
