Forced to sign away land, say assigned land oustees

In a twist of events, some of the land oustees of Mallanasagar project owning assigned lands have alleged that they were threatened to sign papers with threats and sought to register cases against the officials responsible.

“We are the owners of assigned lands and lavani patta lands in Vemulaghat village of Toguta mandal and we have been making a living on these lands for generations. In the name of conducting a survey, the officials came to our village and asked us to sign some papers on which something was written in English. We do not know even Telugu and how can we know English?” asked the villagers in a memorandum submitted to the Collector on Tuesday.

“The officials have informed us that these are government lands and can be taken at any time suggesting us to sign papers so that some compensation can be received. We were also asked to sign on some white papers. The doubt arose as details of lands were not there in the notification issued by the government recently. We will get equal compensation on par with patta land owners if compensation was paid as per the Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act – 2013 (LA Act- 2013). We want to clarify that if someone treats these papers as our consent to sell lands to the government it will not be valid. Procure our lands under LA Act- 2013,” said the villagers in the memorandum.

As many as 42 farmers of assigned lands including Kunta Balaiah and Duddeda Durgaiah have signed on the papers.