Merger of villages with KMC faces opposition

Karimnagar: There is uproar and widespread debate over the proposal to merge Kothapally municipality with the nearby panchayats into Karimnagar Municipal Corporation(KMC).

The people of the respective villages have been holding dharnas for the past few days to protest against the proposal. It seems that the ruling party is planning to merge the nearby villages in view of the upcoming corporation elections.

Minister Ponnam Prabhakar recently wrote a letter to the District Collector to merge Kothapalli Municipality Durshedu, Bommakal, Gopalapur, Chintakunta, Lakshmipur and Malkapur Gram Panchayats in KMC. As this letter went viral, protests started in the respective villages. But it seems that the government is also inclined to merge the nearby villages in the corporation.

However, especially the residents of Durshedu and Gopalapur villages are averse to being merged into the corporation. The people of these two villages say that the real estate has not expanded much towards their area and they are still dependent on agriculture in their area.

Mostly vegetables are grown in Gopalpur village and being for decades vegetables are being supplied to the residents of Karimnagar. Also in Durshedu village other crops are planted besides paddy. They say that it is not appropriate to merge their villages which depend on agriculture. It is also said that in the past they requested the then minister M Satyanarayan Rao as their villages living dependent on agriculture should not be merged into the corporation and he responded positively.

The villagers are worried that if they are included in the urban area, they will lose their livelihood due to the expansion of real estate in the near future. On the other hand, Kothapally municipality has been formed separately and now the proposal to merge it in the corporation is incorrect. There is a demand that Bommakal village should not be merged and should continue as a village panchayat. Also, there is a concern among the agricultural workers that the employment guarantee scheme implemented by the Central government will be stopped due to merging their villages into the corporation. It is said that there are more than 1500 job cards in Gopalapur and Durshedu villages and there is no possibility of employment guarantee after merger in the corporation.

It would be good if other villages that use agricultural land for commercial purposes are merged, but merging the villages that depend only on agriculture will cause them immense loss.

Vemula Shankar of Kothapally told The Hans India that their village panchayat was converted into a municipality in the past, all the taxes were increased as per the municipal law, but facilities were not provided, Mission Bhagiratha water is still not being received and now this municipality will also be merged into the corporation and there will be more tax burden.

Nerella Sandhya of Durshedu village expressed her concern that merging their village panchayat into a corporation would make them ineligible for the employment guarantee scheme implemented by the central government, thereby causing them to lose their livelihood.