Curation Team
VIJAYAWADA: The state govt is virtually left clueless to resolve the contentious free-hold lands issue. The registration of about 20 lakh acres of assigned lands has been put on hold on the suspicion of tampering of records. Although, the govt conducted village level revenue meetings to screen the land records, it could not resolve the free-hold lands issue in the last one year.
Several lakhs of farmers have been struggling to sell their lands as the govt is delaying the decision to lift the ban on registration of the lands entered into the prohibitory lands register. The state govt has even appointed a Group of Ministers (GoM) to study the issue after the senior officials failed to come up with a solution. Surprisingly, the GoM too could not ready the roadmap to unlock the controversy even after holding several meetings. “We are hopeful of finding a solution by October. It is taking time as the govt wanted to prevent irregularities in transfer of assigned lands to the influential people. We wanted to protect the rights of the genuine landlords as well as the govt property,” said revenue minister Anagani Satya Prasad.
A large number of farmers and eligible assignees, thought that the govt will free up the freeze orders at least to the extent which were not on the suspicion list. Giving a shocker to the original assignees, the govt has extended the ban by another three months in the guise of further verification of records.
“The govt looks keen to hand over the lands of the poor to landlords and corporates with such delay tactics. We demand that an all-party meeting be held immediately to formulate a comprehensive policy on the land issue,” CPM state secretary V Srinivasa Rao.
He explained that successive govts have stated that approximately 32 lakh acres of surplus land were distributed to the poor since 1970. However, previous govt declared that around 15 lakh acres were encroached upon by influential persons. “Before elections, Naidu had promised to take the assigned lands from the ineligible people back and given to genuine beneficiaries. Not even an acre was distributed besides resolution of the existing 22-A controversy,” said Srinivasa Rao.
