Collector Musharraf Ali Farooqui stresses on cooperation with Podu farmers

Nirmal: District Collector Musharraf Ali Farooqui on Saturday warned that he will not tolerate any negligence from the authorities in receiving the applications pertaining Podu land issues from the 8th of this month

Addressing a meeting with the forest, revenue and panchayati raj departments at RR Garden, the Collector told the officials that the government has taken steps to resolve the issue of lands as soon as possible. As part of this, applications will be received from the 8th of this month and will continue till the December 8th. The main purpose of this process is to protect the RVOFR degree and forest lands to the deserving. The Collector warned the authorities not to show any negligence or delay in accepting the applications from the applicants. There will be village, mandal, division and district level committees as well as a forest rights committee, he said and added that the role of the village level committee is crucial and that these committees should meet 3 times and sign the date and time during the meetings. Registers for applications, resolutions and dispatch must be maintained, he said. He informed that a meeting should be arranged first to receive the applications from applicants and later a gram sabha will be organised for two or three days to conduct a field inspection.

Mandal level committees are required to visit the gram panchayat committees every Monday and added that a signed report should be sent to the control room daily. He also said that if there are more gram panchayats then meetings should be held in every village and habitations. The Collector informed that detailed information should be provided to the Podu farmers during the meetings. He said that apart from the 100 villages affected by the floods in the district the other villages should also be investigated.

Additional Collectors have directed the Revenue Division Officer to allocate additional personnel required in the most occupied zones.

He said that 6,200 people were engaged in paddy farming in the district, of which 1000 were non-STs. The FRC committees should have 10-15 members, of which 3 per cent are tribals and 1/3 of them women.

District Forest Officer Vikas Meena said that out of 396 gram panchayats in the district, 100 gram panchayats are occupying fallow lands. He said that those who had been cultivating before December 13, 2005 were eligible for the rights, while others need to have evidence that they had been cultivating since 1930.

Additional Collectors Hemanth Borkade, PK Rambabu, Divisional Forest Officer, Siddhartha Vikram Singh, District Tribal Welfare Officer Srinivas Reddy, DPVO Venkateshwarlu, Forest, Revenue, Panchayati Raj Branch officials and others were present.