Visakhapatnam : The state government has taken a serious effort to sort out the long-pending land issues of Gajuwaka and Simhachalam ‘pancha gramulu’ in Visakhapatnam district. In line with this, Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu held a meeting with MLAs from Visakhapatnam district on Wednesday to derive feasible ways to resolve long term land issues. The good news is that about 7,000 families from the Gajuwaka area and another 12,149 families residing in pancha gramalu of Simhachalam will soon get relief within a few months.

The NDA government has taken a positive stand on handing over alternative lands to the Simhachalam Devasthanam which is the main obstacle to resolve the land problem of the Simhachalam temple so far. Thousands of families will be relieved with the government’s decision once the pancha gramalu case gets resolved in the high court. The NDA government decided to hand over 610 acres of substitute land to the temple worth Rs 5,000 crore in the urban area.

In 1996, the then Pendurthi and Visakhapatnam rural tahsildars issued ryotwari pattas for 12,000 acres, stating that the land belonged to Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Devasthanam of Simhachalam. Over 13,000 families are residing in the lands of pancha gramalu spreading across Vepagunta, Adavivaram, Cheemalapalli, Purushothapuram and Venkatapuram villages.

During the TDP’s rule, two GOs were issued to regularise the lands occupied by the locals across the five villages. Availing GO 578, a low percentage of residents regularised their lands and availed Land Regularisation Certificates (LRC) from the Devasthanam. Rest of the residents were unable to sell or register their lands due to lack of LRC.

Again, in 2014, the TDP government issued GO 296 after taking a decision in the cabinet meeting to sort out the problem. However, the YSRCP legal cell representatives approached the court to halt the procedure.

During his ‘pada yatra,’ YSRCP chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy vowed to resolve the dispute of five villages as soon as he came to power. But, after coming to power, the YSRCP government constituted a high-power committee headed by the endowments minister to resolve the issue. Later, the government expanded the committee by including MPs but not a single move was taken to resolve the issue.

Keeping the struggles in view, the NDA government is seeking a permanent solution to the people residing in the disputed lands and steps are taken to resolve them at the earliest.