HYDERABAD: Revenue Minister Dharmana Prasada Rao announced on Monday that the Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfer) Act, 1977, would be amended to restore assigned land to original assignees and punish officials responsible for registering them to others.

Replying to the debate in the Assembly on the lands surrendered by Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the Minister said that penal provisions would be incorporated in the Act to prosecute those retaining such lands after promulgation of the ordinance declaring these transactions null and avoid.

Mr. Prasada Rao said the Government had embarked upon a programme with the slogan `land back to the poor' to distribute land, recovered or surrendered, to the original beneficiaries. Already, 80,000 acres of assigned land had been recovered against an estimated nine lakh acres that could be recovered under the ordinance.

This would be re-distributed at the rate of three lakh acres annually under phases IV and V of the land distribution programme. So far, 4.34 lakh acres had been distributed, he said.

Loopholes in law

The assigned lands had gone into the hands of others due to lack of sincerity on the part of non-Congress Governments and loopholes in the law. The proposed amendments would cover all these gaps. The situation now was such that even records relating to these lands were missing because the of mandal revenue system introduced in 1984 by the TDP. Efforts were on to bring back the old revenue system and complete the survey of lands in order to resolve all land disputes.

The Congress assigned top priority to land as productive asset. All pieces of legislations related to distribution of land to the poor were introduced by Congress Governments. He wondered as to why the Telugu Desam was worried when the Chief Minister had surrendered his lands and upheld the Congress' 50-year-old legacy.

TDP ridiculed

He ridiculed the TDP for trying to project that the possession of these lands by him was brought to light by it when the truth was otherwise. "If you knew about these lands, why no action was taken during your nine-year period?" he asked TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu.

The Minister said it was unfortunate that Mr. Naidu who himself had acquired 5.67 acres of assigned lands at Gundusettipalli, was raising an accusing finger against the Chief Minister.

He added that a chopper from Bangalore was hired to photograph the latter's lands.

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