Farmers in the Anantapur district have opposed the proposed acquisition of 66 acres of land and the loss of 334 houses, without holding a grama sabha and consulting the aggrieved farmers, for the expansion of National Highway No. 544D from Anantapur to Guntur.
The road will travel 69 km in Anantapur district before it enters Kurnool district.
Notification for the project was given by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in June 2018, but there was no progress till now, and officials began the survey exercise this week. The farmers are up in arms against the government for not discussing it with them in grama sabhas and fixing the compensation properly for the houses they are likely to lose.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) district secretary V. Rambhupal, who led a team to Pamurai and a few other villages (Venkatampalli, Arakativemula and Rotarypuram) through which the proposed road travels, said on Saturday that the compensation for the houses was fixed in 2018 and the costs had increased manifold in the past four years and a revision should be done according to the present land rates and material cost.
In all, 155 farmers would lose their 66 acres of land the majority of the lands now command ₹80 lakh to ₹1 crore per acre, but the government was trying to settle at ₹18 lakh, which was not justified, he opined and demanded that a grama sabha be held in all the villages where land acquisition had been proposed.
