Farmers welcome govt initiative on capital

Thulluru (Guntur): Farmers and the farm labours of Thulluru mandal headquarters have expressed their gratitude to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for deciding to build capital in the mandal. Cutting across the party, caste and class lines, the people from this sleepy village, welcomed the decision and the strong initiative taken by Naidu to establish capital with Thulluru as central point. “But for Naidu, this region would have remained anonymous. Today, our village is known world over,” asserted many of these villagers.

Everyone appears to be happy over the prospect of becoming citizens of new capital and take pride in it. They feel honoured to be part of new capital region and maintain that their 300-year-old village attained to fame finally. “But for Naidu our village would not have won such a distinction,” said Gadde Venkatapathi Rao, Jammu Sambasiva Rao, Aluri Krishna Rao and Savaram Saidulu who were found sitting in the village Panchayat office. They thanked Naidu in one voice for setting up the capital here. They are the witness to the changes that are taking place in the village once it is identified as capital region. “As it appears, we will see several changes in the years to come,” they said.

The happiness and pride apart, they are in a state of confusion over the quantum of compensation that the government intends to pay to farmers for their lands to be taken for the capital. They feel that the promises made by the government and also the provisions in the CRDA Act have lacked clarity. “We want the government to give legality to every promise, particularly the compensation,” said both Gadde Venkatapathi Rao and Aluri Krishna Rao.

They expressed scepticism as to implementation of promises made by Naidu. They cited their experience in implementation of farm loan waiver scheme. “We have not yet received the benefit of loan waiver scheme. Whatever the government intends to pay would only go towards paying penalty imposed by banks as repayment was not made in time,” said Krishna Rao.

“I have taken Rs 4 lakh loan and stopped repayment believing in Naidu’s promise of total loan waiver. But, the government has decided to write off only Rs 1.50 lakh and the amount the government would waive is insignificant,” he pointed out.

Saidulu, a farmer, sought clarity on the component of compensation the government would pay to farmers.

“Whatever is promised, it should have legal status and should be binding on the successive governments to fulfil them. It should not be like the loan waiver promise,” Saidulu declared as others in the group nodded their heads in agreement. They suggested that the Chief Minister make a personal visit to villages and have direct interaction with the people. “The interaction should not be with the selective group of individuals. He should be able to face if there is any criticism or if anyone speaks against land pooling,” said Krishna Rao and Saidulu.

By: D Gopi