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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Transfer Acharya for impartial probe: TRS

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti has demanded that the State government take steps to transfer B.P. Acharya, Principal Secretary, Industries to facilitate an impartial probe into the “scandal” involving land allotted to Emaar Properties.

TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao also wanted Chief Minister K. Rosaiah to sack government's advisor of public affairs K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao claiming that “he supervised the land allotments” made to various companies in the name of setting up of industry and special economic zones.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Mr. Rao said government should take steps to resume the vast tracts of land allotted to Emaar, which were still lying vacant, and restore it to the small and marginal farmers from whom it was “forcibly acquired”.

He demanded that the government should initiate immediate action into the issue failing which apprehensions would be raised on the Chief Minister's role in the “biggest land scam in the country involving over Rs. 10,000 crore”. The TRS would come out with more evidence on the irregularities which commenced from the day land acquisition was notified by the then Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in 2002.

Mr. Rao wondered how the then government had fixed the land price at Rs. 29 lakh an acre in finalising APIIC's equity while farmers were offered a meagre Rs. 5 lakh an acre.

Also, influential people like film actor Vijaya Nirmala (owning 14 acres) and Minister Galla Aruna Kumari (3.5 acres) were subsequently exempted from land acquisition on grounds that they were poor.

Consent

The TRS president also cautioned government against commencing mining operations in Manuguru of Khammam district where an open cast mine was proposed. The entire land stretch identified for mining was under the purview of 1/70 Act covering Tribal areas and the government had not initiated any measures to conduct public hearing or obtaining the consent of tribals in the five villages that would be severely affected.

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