Rahul Maganti

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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Our conversation begins with the basics. Siva Reddy, 62, from Penumaka village in Guntur district,
tells me, “I own five acres of land. On three acres, I grow banana, ivy gourd
on two acres, onion on one acre…” That would mean you have six acres and not
five, I ask.

According to the master plan for the
Amaravati Sustainable Capital City Development Project, prepared by a
consortium of construction companies from Singapore, the three phases of
construction together will require around 100,000 acres of land. On this will
be set up the Raj Bhavan, the legislature, the high court, the secretariat,
infrastructure (including roads and housing colonies), industries and IT
companies – and some of the land will be allotted to landowners whose plots are
being acquired by the state. 

However, the August 2014 report of
the Sivaramakrishnan Committee has said that 200-250 acres would be sufficient
for the administrative buildings of the new capital; other than these, it
recommended ‘decentralised’ development in different parts of Andhra Pradesh instead
of a mega-capital building exercise. The Committee was appointed in March 2014
by the central government to study alternatives for a new capital site while
ensuring the “least possible dislocation to existing agriculture systems,”
minimum resettlement of people and their habitations, and the preservation of the
local ecology. The state government seems to have ignored the Committee’s  report.

The APCRDA master plan also says that 56.5 lakh jobs will be created in
the new city by 2050, but it doesn’t say how. The cost of the capital project
is estimated to be over Rs. 50,000 crores – an amount confirmed by Sreedhar Cherukuri,
commissioner of APCRDA, when I asked him. The funders include the Andhra
Pradesh government, the people (through bonds sold by the government) and, potentially,
the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.To acquire land for the new capital, the state government came up with the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS) in January 2015. However, the LPS disregards the safeguards and checks promised by the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (LARR) of 2013, including an assessment of the  social and environmental impact, the consent of at least 70 per cent of those affected, and fair resettlement packages.

The LPS only
takes the consent of landowners and excludes others dependent on the land, such
as agricultural labourers. Landowners can ‘voluntarily’ give their plots to the
state and get a ‘reconstituted developed’ plot (with residential as well as
commercial components) in the new capital. 
The APCRDA will keep the rest of
the land for roads, government buildings, industries, and so on. The government
has also promised compensation of Rs. 30,000-50,000 per acre (depending on the type
of land) every year for 10 years, till the landowners are given their new plots. 

“The revenue authorities kept on telling us that the government will
forcibly acquire our lands if we don’t give it for pooling. It spread lies that
the compensation we will get under the Land Acquisition Act is peanuts compared
what we would get from the LPS,” says Sambi Reddy. 

In March 2017, over a 1,000 farmers wrote to the World Bank asking it to
withdraw funding from the capital project because it was a threat to their farm
and fishing livelihoods, would destroy the area’s fertile farmland and food
security, and the massive construction activity in a  flood-prone region could cause huge
ecological damage. They asked the World Bank to keep their names anonymous. 

Another farmer from Penumaka, who didn’t want to be named, tells me,
“The police foisted false cases on us because we resisted the pooling scheme.
Hundreds of police officers would descend on the village and a camp was set up
[by the government] for months together in each of the 29 villages.” It served
to intimidate the villagers.

Another Penumaka farmer, who too wishes to remain unnamed, adds, “The
panchayat office in the village was turned into an APCRDA office which was
monitored by an official of the deputy collector’s cadre.”

According to an APCRDA report for the World Bank, 4,060 landowners (till
October 2017) are yet to give consent for the Land Pooling Scheme. However, APCRDA
Commissioner Sreedhar Cherukuri maintains that no force or pressure was used,
and from January 2015 the farmers started giving their lands “voluntarily and happily.”

Of the 29 villages, the people of Penumaka and Undavalli strongly resisted the land pooling scheme
and didn’t give up their lands. The proximity of these villages to the Chennai-Kolkata
highway makes this land especially valuable. And many of the farmers here, most
of them from the Reddy community, are supporters of the main opposition party, the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu
Congress Party. 

Landowners in the other 27 other villages are mainly from the Kamma community,
who form a strong support base of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and
support the Amaravati project.  “We
should develop. How long will we stay in villages? We want to develop like the
people in Vijayawada and Guntur,” says Ginjupalli Sankara Rao of Uddandarayunipalem, who gave
away his land for land pooling. In Neerukonda village, far from the river,   Muvva Chalapathi Rao asks, “Why should I do
agriculture when I only have losses?” 

But even in these 27 villages, there is resistance – besides the
exclusion of those who don’t own land from the LPS. In Venkatapalem village, I meet Boyapati Sudharani, a small farmer from the Kamma
community, who has less than an acre of land. In February 2015, she was seen in
a video on the internet saying, “I have never voted for any party except the
TDP ever since I got the right to vote. It seems like we dug our own grave. I
have only one question for Chandrababu. If he gives us the plots after 10
years, should we die now and be born later?” Subsequently, a posse of policemen
and revenue officials arrived at her home, forced her to retract (by pressuring
her husband and in-laws), and give her consent for the Land Pooling Scheme.

“You have groundwater just 10-15 feet below [the surface]. This is multi-cropped
land [in the fertile Krishna-Godavari delta] and the farms are not left empty
for even a day in the year. One crop or the other grows on all 365 days of the
year,” says Krishna Reddy, who owns an acre of land in Penumaka, and rents four
more. “I generally get a profit of Rs. 2 lakhs per acre per year. At most, when
the market prices are low, I end up with no loss, no profit.”

For long, agricultural labourers have come to Penumaka, Undavalli and some
of the other 29 villages from far-away places like Srikakulam and Rajahmundry in search of work. Men
earn Rs. 500-600 per day, women make Rs. 300-400, and there’s work round the
year. “Now, the people of these 29 villages cannot find work here and are going
to far-off villages to look for work,” says Krishna. 

I ask him, “What crops do you grow?” Pat comes his reply: “You give me the
name of a crop. I will grow it next year and I am sure of a bumper harvest. I
can take you around and show you 120 different crops.” Krishna is currently growing
banana and maize, and the robust farm-market linkages in the region are an
added bonus for farmers like him. 

Siva doesn’t know what kind of jobs the state will create once these
productive agricultural lands are acquired for the capital city. “Where will those
50 lakh jobs come from? This is all trash, when livelihood opportunities are dwindling.
What is happening here is real estate business in the guise of development. This
is not a people’s capital. This is a capital for the rich, for the
multinational corporates, for the people in suits, not for common people like
us.” More in this series:<a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/new-capital-city-old-mechanisms-of-division">New capital city, old mechanisms of division</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>

‘This is not a people’s capital’

'ఇది ప్రజల రాజధాని కాదు'

இது மக்களுக்கான தலைநகர் இல்லை

‘এইখন সাধাৰণ জনতাৰ ৰাজধানী নহয়’

‘এটা আম জনতার রাজধানী নয়’

‘ଏହା ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ରାଜଧାନୀ ନୁହେଁ’

‘ही काही लोकांची राजधानी नाहीये’

’یہ عوام کی راجدھانی نہیں ہے‘

‘यह जनता की राजधानी नहीं है’

Amaravati

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‘This is not a people’s capital’

Amaravati, the mega-city coming up in Andhra amid grand claims by the government, will displace thousands of farmers from fertile land. While many are resisting, others are giving in to land pooling schemes

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