Land pooling put to rest: Errabelli

Warangal: It's apparent that the State government has decided to cancel the Land Pooling process, according to Minister for Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Errabelli Dayakar Rao.

Speaking to media persons after he held a meeting with the Chief Whip D Vinay Bhaskar, MLAs and officials in Hanumakonda on Tuesday, he said that the TRS government will not go ahead with any programme that hurts the farmers. It may be mentioned here that farmers have been up against the government for over a month demanding the scrapping of GO MS No. 80A that entails the KUDA acquiring nearly 22,000 acres under the Land Pooling scheme.

"Following widespread opposition to the land pooling from the farmers of 28 villages, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, and MA&UD Minister KT Rama Rao have decided to cancel it. In fact, the Kakatiya Urban Development Authority (KUDA) which proposed to acquire land in Warangal, Hanumakonda and Jangaon districts under land pooling scheme like in Hyderabad issued a notification to elicit the opinion of the farmers on May 30. We have decided to cancel the process a few days ago after farmers expressed their disinclination to part with their lands. It took some time for us to clarify the decision as KTR went abroad. After his arrival, it was decided to do away with the land pooling," Errabelli said.

Farmers should be aware of the fact that some forces with vested interests spread misinformation and tried to snatch the farmers' lands, Errabelli said. The TRS government which has made agriculture a festival by rolling out several welfare programmes such as Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, 24-hour free power supply etc will not work against the interests of the farmers, he asserted. Warangal East MLA Nannapuneni Narender, Wardhannapet MLA Aroori Ramesh, Station Ghanpur MLA T Rajaiah, Parkal MLA Challa Dharma Reddy, Greater Warangal Mayor Gundu Sudharani, KUDA chairman Sunder Raj Yadav, municipal commissioner P Pravinya, Warangal and Hanumakonda district collectors B Gopi and Rajeev Gandhi Hanumanthu were among others present.