In a big boost to Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s dream capital Amaravati, farmers who were earlier reluctant to give up their lands for the capital city have now given their consent for the same under land pooling scheme.
During his earlier regime, Naidu could mobilise more than 34,281 acres of land under land pooling scheme from around 24,000 farmers belonging to 29 villages through AP Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) for the capital city of Amaravati.
However, all the farmers of two villages – Penumaka and Undavalli, besides some of the farmers in Rayapudi, Mandadam, Velagapudi and Nidamarru, refused to part with their lands under land pooling scheme.
The land pooling at Vundavalli and Penumaka is very much essential, as the eight-lane seed access road of Amaravati will have to pass through these villages to join the Vijayawada-Chennai national highway. It is also an essential part of the Amaravati outer ring road and inner ring road projects.
The then Naidu government, having no other option, issued a land acquisition notification to acquire more than 4,000 acres of land in these villages.
But the farmers, under the auspices of YSR Congress party MLA from Mangalagiri Alla Ramakrishna Reddy, rejected the notification and opposed the same at the grama sabhas held by the APCRDA officials.
After Jagan Mohan Reddy came to power in 2019, the entire Amaravati project was pushed into cold storage and so was the plan for land acquisition.
A few months before the 2024 assembly elections, the Jagan government withdrew the land acquisition notification, so as to destabilise the entire capital city masterplan.
Now that the TDP and its alliance is back in power, Amaravati capital works picked up pace.
The Centre, too, acknowledged the capital city and announced to arrange Rs 15,000 crore through multilateral development agencies, thereby confirming that it is also supporting Amaravati as the capital city.
Apparently realising that there is no point in resisting the capital city now, farmers of Vundavalli and Penumaka, besides other villages have come forward and offered to give their lands to Amaravati under land pooling scheme.
It is a big relief to the Naidu government, as it doesn’t have to spend huge money for the land acquisition. Instead, it has to allot returnable plots to the farmers of these villages as part of the land pooling agreement. This will make way for the extension of Seed Access Road to the national highway!
