Hyderabad: Even as more than 25,000 farmers await the development and handing over of their commercial and residential plots in Amaravati, as promised by the Chandrababu Naidu government, around 300 All India Service (AIS) officers in Andhra Pradesh, too, are in a similar long wait for the possession of their plots. Naidu’s return to power has given them some hope.
These IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service officers, who each paid Rs 25 lakh for a 500-square yard plot six years back, include AP chief secretary K. Vijayanand, DGP Dwaraka Tirumala Rao, principal chief conservator of forests Chiranjiv Chowdhary and Bhaskar Katamneni, currently the commissioner of the AP Capital Region Development Authority.
The previous Naidu government had tied up with the Singapore consortium and other companies to develop a world-class capital for truncated Andhra Pradesh, which had lost its growth engine, Hyderabad, to Telangana. It was inviting government and non-government institutions including universities to set up shop in order to spur growth, and also offered plots at a fair price to the AIS officers for them to settle down in what it planned as a top livable city globally.
So, following the government orders in January 2019 and the formation of the Lumbini AIS Housing Group/Society by the AIS officers for this purpose, the residential plot allotment letters were issued to the 282 members (as on 11 February 2019).
Saying that the AIS plots were located at Inavolu village in Amaravati, the APCRDA letters asked the officers to pay an amount of Rs 25,00,000 by way of RTGS/ demand draft drawn in favour of the commissioner, APCRDA, Vijayawada for the 500 sq. yards allotted on freehold to him/her.
ThePrint is in possession of one such allotment letter.
“As far as I know, almost all the AIS officers in AP opted for the plots. I paid the specified amount taking a bank loan and am still paying EMIs for the same,” one IFS officer told ThePrint. A senior IPS officer, too, said the same.
However, after the change of government a few months later, the new CM, Jagan Mohan Reddy, scrapped the capital project. This saw the AIS officers’ township plots, like those of the farmers, pushed into doldrums. The expanse was engulfed by wilderness in the past five years, like most of the Amaravati capital area.
The Naidu government, upon returning to power in June, took up large-scale jungle clearance, hiring dozens of JCBs.
“Like the farmers, we are also sufferers. Given the uncertainty over Amaravati, we were silent on the matter all along. But now with Naidu promising to develop the capital at the earliest, we hope to take possession of our plots soon,” said one IAS officer.
Though the plot allotment and registrations took place long ago, these officers say they were not able to take physical possession. “I have not seen my bit of land yet,” said another officer.
A CRDA official, however, said the priority is to hand over the farmers’ plots first in accordance with the commitment of the TDP-led government.
However, a former CRDA official, who is also a beneficiary, asserted that the price they pai—Rs 5,000 per sq. yard “on par with then market price”—includes development charges/costs.
A similar proposal was moved to allot plots for gazetted officers, too, but the plan could not fructify as AP went into election mode for the 2019 general and assembly polls, one office-bearer of the AP secretariat gazetted officers forum told ThePrint.
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Flats for officers also in limbo, to be ready in ‘8-9 months’
Meanwhile, the AIS officers’ wait extends to the flats the previous government built for them to reside in while in service.
The multi-storey buildings, about 80 percent completed by mid-2019, were left abandoned once Jagan took over.
“We plan to bring them into use in eight-nine months’ time,” said the CRDA official.
While the farmers across Amaravati are also awaiting possession of their developed plots, the CRDA official said it would take between two and two-and-a-half years for all such plots to be handed over.
In 2015, Naidu envisaged Amaravati as a “World-Class Greenfield People’s Capital City” planned to be built on 53,748 acres, falling midway between Guntur and Vijayawada. Naidu adopted a land-pooling method and obtained about 34,400 acres from farmers voluntarily. The ryots parted with their lands in exchange for a predefined proportion of their land after development along with requisite infrastructure and other benefits.
The guaranteed returns under the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS) per acre are 1000 sq yards of residential and 250 square yard commercial plots in case of dry land. The commercial plot would be 450 sq yards in case of irrigated, semi-urban land. The annuity was Rs 30,000 and 50,000 respectively per acre for the crop loss, for 10 years, with a 10 percent annual increase.
Rs 2,500 per month for a 10-year period was promised to all the landless families
So, the capital region farmers, convinced by Naidu’s Land Pooling Scheme, parted with their fertile lands on the banks of the Krishna River in return for developed plots and other benefits.
According to Jonnalagadda Manoj, a real estate agent at Malkapuram-Mandadam who also gave up his land for the capital, farmers were given a choice of plot sizes. This, according to officials, ranges from 120 sq yds to 25,000 sq yd for residential (494 plot options were given) and 30 sq yd to 25,000 sq yd (49 plot options) for commercial plots depending on their entitlement.
APCRDA officials said landowners were provided with the choice of individual allotment, joint allotment or both, based on their returnable plot entitlement.
“Overall, farmers were given approximately 4,000 options to choose from. Based on plot options received, final layouts were prepared and an online lottery was conducted in a public forum for allocation of returnable plots,” Naidu’s white paper on Amaravati released in July said.
As on 28 June 2019, 25,398 landowners had contributed 34,281 acres towards the Land Pooling Scheme. The total returnable plots allotted were 63,410 (37,479 residential and 25,931 commercial), and registrations were executed in 38,224 (22,592 residential and 15,632 commercial) cases, the capital project status report document says.