Adilabad: The land survey being conducted by the state government has revealed that agriculture lands on the outskirts of towns in the newly-formed districts are being converted into commercial plots and housing sites. This is especially evident in the new district headquarters and towns close to the district headquarters.
At present, there is a high demand for agriculture lands in Mancherial, Adilabad and Nirmal districts for the construction of government offices, private educational institutions, hospitals and shopping complexes. However, it is hard to predict for how long this demand will persist and whether these plots will have a high resale value.
With the creation of new districts and the identification of towns as new district headquarters, connectivity in villages and towns has improved. New colonies are coming up on the outskirts of towns and open lands are quickly disappearing. This is true of Mancherial, Nirmal and Adilabad towns, all of which have been identified as new district headquarters. There has been immense pressure on the owners of agriculture lands to sell their plots. Some of them have even received threatening calls from realtors and members of the real estate mafia.
An officer from the Revenue Department of Mancherial, on condition of anonymity, said that it was very difficult to protect even government lands from the pressure mounted by the land mafia, who had the support of political leaders. He said that government lands worth crores of rupees were being encroached upon. He added that the situation was understandable given that government lands were not available for the construction of offices in the new district headquarters, because of which developers were forced to purchase private lands for the purpose.
