Eatala slams HYDRA for robbing livelihood of poor

Hyderabad: Malkajgiri Member of Parliament Etala Rajender criticizes that HYDRA is acting with highhandedness against the powerless common citizens. After visiting the Venktrao Nagar and Seshadri Nagar areas in Kukatpally, where HYDRA conducted a demolition drive in the name of alleged encroachments of Nalla Cheruvu, he condemned the demolitions.

Terming the demolitions a "wicked and ruthless use of power" against common people, he warned that continuing it would result in the Congress-led government in the state getting washed away in the tears and curses of the innocent people.

He stated that Nalla Cheruvu once provided water to irrigate hundreds of acres, and according to an earlier survey, it was spread over an extent of 19 acres. Later it was resurveyed, and the extent was fixed at 27 acres. However, the government land in Nalla Cheruvu was only 7 acres and 36 guntas. The remaining was private land. "People owning the lands are not based on 'EksalPattas' (land pattas issued for a year). Owners have been possessing their lands for decades." He mentioned that some individuals who have come for livelihoods from different parts of the Telugu states have taken the lands on a rental basis from the owners to run small businesses.

The dishonest and ruthless HYDRA's Saturday and Sunday demolition drives expose that it has no faith in the courts and judicial system in the country. Furthermore, despite people living in the places of alleged encroachments falling at the feet of the officials and begging to allow them to remove immovable properties with which they are running their livelihoods, the demolition drives are being conducted as if acting with vengeance by destroying the immovable assets of those running bulldozers.

Etala said that no one would oppose protecting the water bodies. Intellectuals and those supporting the maintenance of ecological balance should also see the ground realities of the ruthless destruction of the lives of the poor and middle-class people. He dared the state government and HYDRA to run its bulldozers on Prasad I-Max and other constructions falling under the Hussain Sagar lake.