Rahul Maganti

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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“Why are we being given compensation
that’s different from what landowners with pattas
[titles] are given?” asks Turaka Baburao, a 55-year-old Dalit farmer who owns
less than an acre in Rayapudi,
a village of around 4,800
people  in Guntur district. He’s
talking about the compensation that the Andhra Pradesh government is giving farmers
for land it is acquiring to build a new ‘world-class’ capital, Amaravati. “In fact,
our fields are far more fertile than the patta lands because they are adjacent to the Krishna
river,” he adds. 

Baburao,
along with 800 other farmers,
most of them from the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC), is
a member of the Assigned Land Farmers Welfare Association, Rayapudi. When the state
distributed land under the Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceilings on
Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973, these cultivators were ‘assigned’ around 2,000
acres (by their own estimate) in Rayapudi on the banks of the Krishna and its islands.
Most of the families who received these plots are from Dalit and OBC
communities.

“We have
been cultivating this land for three generations, even before this country got Independence.
Indira Gandhi gave us rights over the land by giving us assigned pattas,” says Baburao. According to the Andhra Pradesh
Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977, these assigned lands
cannot be bought or sold by individuals and can only be transferred from one
family member to another. 

However, the
government is acquiring 33,000 acres for phase one of the construction of its ‘greenfield’
capital. Of these around 10,000 acres, estimate local activists, are assigned
lands, while the rest are patta lands
cultivated by upper caste Kamma,
Kapu and Reddy farmers.

01-IMG_20180728_163851_HDR-RM.jpg

While the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/resources/the-right-to-fair-compensation-and-transparency-in-land-acquisition-rehabilitation-and-resettlement-act-2013/">Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act</a> (LARR) was passed by the central government in 2013, the state government came up with its own Land Pooling Scheme (LPS) to acquire land for the new capital. The LPS disregards the safeguards and checks ensured by LARR, including social and environmental impact assessment, taking the consent of at least 70 per cent of those affected, and rehabilitation and resettlement packages. The LPS, which came into effect in January 2015, only takes the consent of those who own land and excludes others dependent on the land, such as agricultural labourers. Landowners can ‘voluntarily’ give their plots to the state and, in return, get a ‘reconstituted developed’ plot in the new capital instead of monetary compensation. On February 17, 2016, the municipal administration and urban development department of the Andhra Pradesh government issued an order which says that for every acre of patta land given ‘voluntarily’, the landowner will get a 1,000-square yard residential plot and a 450-square yard commercial plot in the new capital, where a shop or business can be set up.  The land pooling authority or the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) will keep the rest of the land and use it for building roads, public buildings, industries, and other civic amenities. For an acre of assigned land, the APCRDA has set a compensation of an 800-square yard residential plot and a 250-square yard commercial plot. And for assigned land on islands in the Krishna river it is even lower at a 500-square yard residential plot and a 100-square yard commercial plot.

However,
most of the patta
landowners think the differing compensation is fair. “We have worked hard and
earned the land we are tilling. They [the owners of assigned land] got it for
free from the government because they are poor. How can both of us be treated
equally?” asks a Kamma farmer from Rayapudi, who didn’t want to be named. 

Anumolu
Gandhi, who owns patta
land in Uddandarayunipalem, about five kilometres from Rayapudi, is an
environmental activist who has highlighted the ecological impact of the mega-capital
on the Krishna’s wetlands. He says, “The difference in compensation was a
strategic ploy by [chief minister Chandrababu] Naidu to convince the patta
landowners to give their lands for pooling. If the compensation had been the
same, the patta
landowners would never have given their lands because most of them consider the
assigned lands as crumbs given to the poor by the government.”

However,
Ravi Kumar, an advocate in the Andhra Pradesh high court, who has represented people
displaced by forced land acquisition in several parts of Andhra Pradesh and
Telangana, says, “The government order [of differing compensation]  doesn’t stand legal scrutiny in a court of law
and is unconstitutional. The high court, in a 2004 case called Land Acquisition
Officer, Chevella Division, Hyderabad v/s Mekala Pandu case, gave a judgment that
said both assigned lands and patta lands should be given the same
compensation.”

In
addition to such court judgments and the LARR Act, an order issued by the revenue
department of the Andhra Pradesh government in June 2016 (GO No. 259) said that
those with assigned lands should be paid compensation on par with patta land owners. But it goes on to say that “whenever assigned lands are
required for a public purpose for a project or for alienation to a Government
Department or Corporation, the lands shall be resumed [taken back] as per
conditions of patta
[lands].”

Around 4,000
owners of patta
and assigned lands, including Rayapudi village’s Baburao, resisted the LPS and
refused to give his land to the state. They organised meetings and protests. They
wrote to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes. With no option left, the
government invoked the LARR Act. Then the farmers – in various groups from
different villages – appealed to the Andhra Pradesh high court and got stay
orders starting from June 2017 on land acquisition even under LARR. 

The assigned
lands in Rayapudi, Uddandarayunipalem and Venkatapalem villages, which are on
the north bank of the Krishna and on the river’s islands, are important for the
state’s future riverfront capital. The master plan for Amaravati,
prepared by a consortium of construction companies from Singapore, proposes a ‘seed
capital’ – a core area to be developed first on 1,600 acres, along with an industrial
zone, a heritage and tourism hub, and tourist destinations. It also talks about
water parks, adventure and theme parks and golf courses on the riverfront.The companies involved in the capital’s design and construction will get between 6,000 and 10,000 acres of land to set up their businesses, say various news reports. The exact number is not known as the memorandum of understanding between the companies and the state government has not been made public. Baburao’s friend and fellow farmer, Thokala Pullarao, 60, who is also a member of the Assigned Land Farmers Welfare Association in Rayapudi, used to own 0.77 acres of land. Pullarao sold his fertile land for around Rs. 6 lakhs to real estate brokers in 2016 (though this transaction is disallowed). The present market value of land here is reportedly at least Rs.5 crores per acre.

“I feared that
I wouldn’t get any compensation because the government kept saying that these
lands are theirs. The revenue officials told us that since it is the government
which gave us the land, it can take them away when it needs to,” says Pullarao.
“Since we don’t have knowledge of the law, we assumed this to be true.” The brokers
capitalised on this – and on the fear of landowners like Pullarao. Farmers and
local media claim that many brokers are benamis
(stand-ins) of the ruling Telugu Desam Party’s politicians and are sometimes
politicians themselves. 

A December
2014 fact-finding committee of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)
noted that around 3,500 acres of assigned lands had been bought and sold in November
2014, and Rs. 4,000 crores changed hands in a month. The report says that revenue
authorities and the real estate brokers worked hand in hand to make this
happen.

Pullarao
thinks that when Amaravati is complete, it might be a city with ghettoes. “Discrimination
on the basis of caste will exist even in the capital city. All the owners of assigned
land are being given plots in one place and the patta land owners in another.
This will recreate a village where the boundaries between castes are clearly
demarcated,” he says.

On April 14,
2017, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu placed the foundation stone for a 125-feet
statue of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in the new capital. This 20-acre plot will be
called Ambedkar Smruthivanam. Media reports noted that Rs. 100 crores have been
allocated for the garden and the statue. At the stone-laying ceremony, the
chief minister said that Amaravati is inspired by the capital of the 2nd century
Buddhist Satavahana kingdom of the Deccan region, also called Amaravati. 

But, Baburao
asks, “What’s the point in building statues and gardens in the name of Ambedkar
when you don’t follow his ideals and treat the poor and Dalits as second-rate
citizens?” Cover photo: Sri Lakshmi AnumoluMore in this series:<a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/this-is-not-a-peoples-capital">‘This is not a people’s capital’</a><a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/let-the-state-give-us-the-jobs-it-promised">‘Let the state give us the jobs it promised’</a><a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/soaring-land-prices-falling-farm-fortunes">Soaring land prices, falling farm fortunes</a><a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/a-wasteland-of-lost-farm-work">A wasteland of lost farm work</a><a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/mega-capital-city-underpaid-migrant-workers">Mega capital city, underpaid migrant workers</a>

New capital city, old mechanisms of division

نئی راجدھانی اور تقسیم کا پرانا طریقہ

പുതിയ തലസ്ഥാനം, വിഭജനത്തിന്റെ പഴയ രീതികൾ

కొత్త రాజధాని నగరం, పాత విభజన పద్ధతులు

ಹೊಸ ರಾಜಧಾನಿ ನಗರ, ಹಳೆಯ ವಿಭಜನಾ ತಂತ್ರಗಳು

புதிய தலைநகரிலும் தொடரும்,பழைய பிரிவினை முறைகள்

नवी राजधानी, जुने भेदाभेद

ৰাজধানী নতুন, বৈষম্য এলান্ধুকলীয়া

নতুন রাজধানী, পুরোনো বৈষম্য

ନୂଆ ରାଜଧାନୀ, ବିଭାଜନର ପୁରୁଣା ତରିକା

Amaravati

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New capital city, old mechanisms of division

Displaced farmers with fertile ‘assigned’ land they have cultivated for decades at the site of Andhra's new capital Amaravati, are asking why they are being given less compensation than farmers with land titles

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