Kanaparthi, April 14: The inhabitants of Kanaparthi and 12 other villages in Prakasam district take an oath thrice a day saying they are ready to lay down their lives to save their lands from a power plant proposed to be set up there.
A quiet village surrounded by lush green fields, Kanaparthi is the envy of one and all with its beauty and bountiful harvest. But to the land acquisition officers trying to take over the land, it is ‘barren’, and therefore worthy of building a power plant there.
Kanaparthi’s good fortune will be a thing of the past if APGenco’s 4000-MW thermal plant comes up at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore. The prospect is not only the loss of the only source of livelihood they have but also the agony of having to relocate from a place to which a wealth of emotions is earthed.
Twelve other villages in Naguluppalapadu mandal will share the same fate.
Among the villages which stand to lose land to this project is Vinodarayunipalem, the birthplace of T. Prakasam Pantulu, the first chief minister of the pre-merger Andhra state, lionised as the Andhra Kesari and in whose memory Prakasam district is so named.
Some 2638 acres under Survey Numbers 183-1273 are being acquired from farmers to build the project.
Prakasam’s village alone will lose 450 acres.
The lands were barren before 1994 but the scenario was transformed after the completion of the Gundlakamma lift irrigation scheme and the villagers have been getting yields of 50 bags of paddy an acre twice a year. In addition, they are raising pulses too.
Speaking to Express, Power Plant Vyatireka Porata Samithi leader K Trinadha Reddy said that if the government took away their lands they would be reduced to their pre-1994 level of penury.
The anxious villagers have already thrice laid siege to the District Collectorate, and are planning an agitation a la Nandigram.
Youths have begun taking out marches warning fellow villagers they would have to join the ranks of the landless poor, said a farmer, V Narsimha Reddy of Kanaparthi.
The panchayats of Vinodarayunipalem, Sitayigaripalem, Ammanabrolu, Chowtapalem and Machavaram are planning to pass resolutions against the thermal plant.
It all began when a land assignment special collector visited the villages on Nov. 10 and 11 last year and is said to have submitted her report to the state government saying the lands were barren.
Based on this, APGENCO was given the green signal and is now awaiting clearance from the Union Department of Environment and Forests.
Speaking to Express, Suriboina Mutyala Reddy of Kanaparthi said he would fight to save his 50 cents of land, while G Sriramamurthy of Ammanabrolu voiced the apprehension that it would be mostly non-locals who would be hired by the plant when it was set up.
Officials are trying to convince the villagers with ‘‘success’’ stories of farmers elsewhere who had surrendered their lands to the government for similar plants. For his part, District Collector Kantilal Dande said the views of the villagers would be taken into consideration by the government.
The APGenco plant proposes to use a blend of Indian and imported coal in the ratio of 60:40. Although Prakasam district is distant from indigenous coal supply lines, its access to imported coal will be easier as the Krishnapatnam port will be about 90-100 km away.
APGenco stonewalled Right to Information queries by a farmer, Sri Ramamurthy of Dasavaripalem.
It refused to specify the layout of the project, and asked to state whether or not the lands be acquired were high-yielding lands, it kicked the query to the revenue department.
Asked how much of the land being acquired was government, assigned and patta land, its response was to pass the buck to the revenue department.
–AGENCIES–