Short of rejecting the demand by Left parties for a land commission, the Andhra Pradesh government has finally decided to set up a ‘land monitoring committee’ instead. This decision is in line with the recommendation by the Koneru Rangarao Committee. It is an alternative proposal that has been put to the Left parties who are demanding a land commission, state revenue minister D Prasada Rao said.
Pointing to the problems of setting up a commission, Rao said an independent land commission outside the government would mean denigrating the elected government and the state cabinet. “Hence, we want the monitoring committee to work under the stewardship of the chief minister. It will also oversee all land-related issues, including the recommendations of Rangarao Committee,” he added.
However, Rao said the final decision on the composition of the proposed committee will be taken by chief minister Rajasekhara Reddy.
The Rangarao Committee has made 104 suggestions, out of which 74 were agreed upon, while nine were found not feasible to implement. The government will make a formal announcement with regard to the remaining 21 recommendations, the minister said.
“When the main goal for both, the Congress and the Left, is to distribute land to the landless poor, the means to achieving the goal does not matter,” Rao said. He said the government plans to organise regional conferences with revenue officials at Tirupati, Visakhapatanam and Hyderabad during September to discuss all land-related issues, including problems of the tenant farmers.
Giving a new turn to the entire land issue which has been gathering heat, the state government has decided to look into violations of the Agriculture Land Ceiling Act. Officials estimate a few thousand hectares of farm land is being occupied illegally. “Most of this land has been assigned to the weaker sections but is occupied by the upper castes,” officials pointed out. The land has been occupied/bought since 1983 by violating the agriculture ceiling laws. Now such land is under litigation, thus giving an opportunity to illegal occupants to continue with possession of the land, officials said.
Addressing the joint collectors’ conference a couple of days back, the chief minister had said that media houses and industrialists had acquired agricultural land crossing all legal boundaries. He asked joint collectors/RDOs to be more vigilant on such deals and take corrective measures. The land should be taken back, by all means, from the illegal occupants and restored to the original assignee, Reddy said.
Meanwhile, the AP high court has admitted a writ petition challenging the authority of the government to selectively allot land (around Hyderabad) to business houses without public auction or tendering. Though the bench refused a stay on the action of the government, it said future allotments to private parties by the government would be subject to the final orders on the writ petition.