Richest state in the country selling land for survival, says Congress

Richest state in the country selling land for survival, says Congress

Telangana Congress has questioned the government’s claims of being the richest state in the country while resorting to desperate sale of government lands, and said it only shows how hollow the claims were.

Speaking to reporters here, Kisan Congress national vice president M. Kodanda Reddy, and TPCC vice-presidents Chamala Kiran Reddy and S. Jagadeeshwar said that all the lands in the recent auctions were bought by the friends and relatives of the BRS Ministers K.T. Rama Rao and T. Harish Rao and all these realtors had benefitted earlier from their support.

Earlier, lands in G.O. 111 were in the hands of farmers but now they had fallen in the hands of realtors, mostly related to the BRS or the Ministers. That was the only reason that the government wanted desperately abolish the G.O., he claimed.

Mr. Kodanda Reddy said the government was selling the lands given to Dalits and other sections by Indira Gandhi and Congress governments to realtors illegally in Rangareddy, Medak and Nalgonda districts. The previous Congress government allotted 282 acres in Budwel to Dalits as part of land reforms. The Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO) in the TDP government in 1995 also gave notices recognising them as assigned lands.

Moreover, the High Court gave clear directions in 2008 that the lands cannot be snatched from Dalits but the HMDA has auctioned 100 acres of those illegally despite knowing that the lands are even now owned by Dalits, he claimed. So far, 10,000 acres have been transferred to builders and realtors by the BRS government, he said.

In the name of cleansing land records, the BRS government had opened a new method to loot precious lands and bringing in the Dharani portal was a part of that strategy, he argued and blamed Minister K.T. Rama Rao as the prime accused in these sale of lands.

Mr. Kodanda Reddy warned that the Congress will not keep quiet on Dharani and would continue to expose the BRS strategy to take over lands from the poor and sell the same to the rich. He said the government was threatening and pay just ₹9 lakh to the farmers in the assigned lands and transferring the same to builders and companies at ₹99 lakh per acre. He alleged that the government had permitted 5 lakh sqft of construction in the land sold at ₹100 crore per acre and this was in violation of all the norms.