Telangana's Land Act pays better than Central Act: K Chandrasekhar Rao
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao claimed on Wednesday that the Telangana State Land Acquisition Act, 2016 was far better than the 2013 Central Act. Speaking in the Assembly, Mr Rao said the TS government was offering compensation that was 10 times than the Central Act, besides giving displaced persons Rs 5.04 lakh to construct a house.
He said he had personal ordered that curfew and Section 144 be imposed at the Mallannasagar project site after Opposition parties, especially the CPM, tried to create a law and order situation there.
“The Opposition parties provoked farmers not to give their lands under GO 123 by spreading false propaganda that they would get higher compensation under the Centre's Act. They conspired to provoke violence with the mala fide intention that police firing should happen, farmers should die and the government get a bad name,” Mr Rao said.
He said no farmer or local was present at the deekshas at Mallannasagar. He alleged that the CPM had hired anti-social elements who used “pins, needles, razors to attack the police to force them to open firing. To prevent this, I ordered curfew and police restrictions and did not allow outsiders to enter those villages,” Mr Rao stated.
Accusing the Opposition parties of causing loss to farmers, he said, “We have issued notification for land acquisition in those villages. But they will get less compensation now. Had they opted for GO 123, they would have got higher compensation. In some villages, the market price is '9 lakh to '13 lakh (per acre of land) but now we will have to pay less as per the new Act. Who will take responsibility for this?”
He said the government had offered '6.50 lakh per acre for those displaced in Mallannasagar when the provision was to give just '1.50 lakh per acre under the central Act.
"For the landless, we had offered an additional Rs 2 lakh over the Centre's Act towards one-time settlement. Despite knowing all this, the Opposition parties created hurdles in the name of farmers' agitations and conspired to obstruct irrigation projects. The same farmers agreed to give their lands by conducting a meeting in the same spot where Oppo-sition parties held false deekshas,” he noted.
Mr Rao said he was a victom of land acquisition himself. “My father lost hundreds of acres in land acquisition for the Upper Manair Dam taken up by the Nizam government in the 1940s. Though the Nizam government paid us a compensation of Rs 1.70 lakh then, my father fought a case in the High Court for additional Rs 70,000 compensation, and the court ruled in his favour. I know very well since childhood how displaced families suffer on account of land acquisition as my family faced several hardships.”
