Agri lands going into feudal hands

The valuable agriculture lands are going into the hands of the feudal lords in and around the Nirmal and Mancherial towns in the wake of the creation of new districts. 

These agriculture lands will be converted into plots or to be used for the construction of apartments.

The landlords and political leaders have been purchased hundreds of acres of lands  since Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao announced the creation of Nirmal, Mancherial a few days ago and now Asifabad district.

Land transactions in crores of rupees took place in Mancherial and Nirmal towns and subsequently land registrations and this was quite visible.

According to reports, land transactions picked up in and around the Asifabad town and local businessmen and political leaders were busy in purchasing lands since Asifabad was announced as a new district.

Businessmen are targeting the distressed farmers eyeing their lands and purchasing their lands by offering some hiked prices. Political leaders purchased agriculture lands for future purposes in Mamada, Laxmanchanda, Dilawarpur, Khanapur, Sarangapur, Neredigonda mandals which share borders with Nirmal town.

Same is the case with the Mancherial district. The land transaction is high in Jaipur,Luxettipet and Mandamarri mandals sharing borders with the Mancherial town. Land value rose abnormally in Jaipur mandal with eth establishment of the Singreni thermal power project.

If one goes by the records of landholdings, even today traditional landlord communities were dominant in and around the Mancherial and Nirmal areas and owned big tracts of agriculture lands and invested in real estate ventures on the outskirts of these towns.

Traditional feudal communities are strong politically and economically and now they are getting strengthened with the real estate boom created by the new districts. These feudal forces have been controlling the sand mining and timber smuggling for long time in the Adilabad district.  

The feudal communities have faced a setback with the increased Naxal activities in the Adilabad district till 2004 when the then Congress government led by late YS. Rajasekhar Reddy held talks with the Naxalites in the United Andhra Pradesh.

Naxals activities gradually decreased during a Telangana agitation and now their activities are nominal and confined to few packets along the river Pranahitha and Godavari.

A senior political leader of CPI( M) said feudal forces regained ground with Telangana agitation and now are in a position to control the economic and political activity in the new districts Mancherial and Nirmal.

New districts to hit state educational institutions

Government schools, hostels and colleges have been at the receiving end of the  state government’s plans to create new districts. 

Officials have identified existing government school and hostel buildings and taken them over to be used as accommodation for new government offices to be set up in the new districts.

Most of these school and hostels buildings that have been taken over by the officials are in and around the Mancherial.

According to sources, collectorate will be set up in the exiting building of tribal ashram school of ITDA near Degree College, ZP CEO’s office in the ST boys’ hostel building, BC welfare office in government BC integrated girls hostel, DEO office in Boys High school, ICDS Project director office in Balasadan hostel, inter-board RIO office in Government degree college. 

The treasury office in ST boys hostels and employment office in Government ITI for boys. A majority of the existing government buildings that have been taken over by the district officials are educational institutions.

There is no clarity whether the students will be adjusted in other hostels, schools and colleges or accommodated in rented houses after they are evicted from these buildings.

There is also no clarity on the size of the portion that will be utilized for new offices in the existing selected educational buildings or if the entire buildings will be used for the purpose. The district officials have selected school and hostel buildings also in and around the Nirmal town to set up government offices.

In most cases, district officials involved in the creation of new district selected available exiting district instead taking private buildings on rent for the government offices in order to reduce the expenditure.

A senior government teacher said, ‘Educational institutions are getting disturbed. This is leading students and their studies getting disturbed in process of creating new districts Mancherial and Nirmal’.