Pharma City will ruin our lives: Villagers in Ranga Reddy district

Yacharam: The Yacharam mandal people in Ranga Reddy district are alarmed over the setting up of the Hyderabad Pharma City project in their region. It may be recalled that Telangana government is setting up a 'Pharma City' near the state capital in about 8,000 acres. The City will include industries as well as residential colony, and a power plant with 500 MW capacity will be set up adjacent to the pharma city to provide captive, dedicated and uninterrupted power supply to the industry. The project is envisaged in across three mandals — Yacharam, Kandukur and Kadthal. When the people opposed the very project itself and refused to part with their lands for the project, the authorities argued that since the assigned land pattas were given by the government, they had a right to take them away. At that time, the officials even assured the people that they would not take the patta lands.

However, later, the government started efforts to take over the assigned lands and, so far, the people have not been paid any proper compensation as yet. When the officials went to acquire patta lands in contravention of their earlier promise, the people bitterly opposed the move and raised objections. The people have cited the rules of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR Act). It is an Act of Indian Parliament that regulates land acquisition and lays down the procedure and rules for granting compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement to the affected persons in India.

So far the people have been able to stop land acquisition of patta lands in Medipally village. It is true that some people have given the lands for the Pharma City, because of their own needs and also because many times the revenue officials had threatened that if they didn't give the lands, they would simply use the PD Act and take away our lands. All along, the people of Yacharam mandal have opposed the setting up of the Pharma City Project. They tried to voice their concerns at the Environmental Public Hearing (EPH) held on October 11, 2017. However, most of the protesters were arrested and the rest were prevented from participating in the EPH.

As a consequence, the people raised this issue with the Telangana State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB), the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests etc., numerous times. They also wrote to Environmental Appraisal Committee chairman and members with a detailed Biodiversity report and also about all the ways in which people's voices have been suppressed at the EPH. The people are demanding that fresh public hearings be conducted in all the affected villages. They also moved the Ministry of Commerce not to accord National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZ) status to the Hyderabad Pharma City, since the GO 123 and GO 45 under which all the assigned lands had been acquired were suspended by the High Court.

Despite all evidences to the contrary, the Central government granted the environmental clearance (EC) to the Pharma City against the wishes of the local people. However, the only relief that the people got from the Central government was that the EC was subject to the condition that farmers’ lands should be acquired only with consent and there should not be any forcible acquisition. However, this Monday when the farmers from Tathiparthy village went to submit their objections to the land acquisition notification and met the DRO and JC in the Praja Vani, they were told mercilessly that, come what may, with or without their consent, their lands would be acquired.

K N Das, Pasula Kaapari, Jakkula Venkatesh, Yadav Reddy, Saraswati Kavula and others resented that a democratically elected government should behave in this fashion and suppress their rights. They poured out their woes before the media in the state capital. They urged the government to sympathetically consider their plight as the project would mean a death-knell to our livelihoods and lives. “This project will not just harm us but will be dangerous for the entire region in the 50km radius touching up to Hyderabad,” they added.