The Telangana government has withdrawn the primary notification for land acquisition issued for the establishment of a pharma village at Polepally and Lagacherla villages of Dudyal Mandal in Vikarabad after an incident at Lagacherla village where district officials, including the collector, were confronted with protests against the acquisition from an irate mob.
The withdrawal of the notification came after Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy announced that the state government was planning to set up a multi-purpose industrial park in the area, not a pharma village. Since the area comes under the chief minister’s home constituency, Kodangal, the violent protests have led to considerable loss of face for the Congress government.
The state government issued the acquisition notice for the pharma village on 30 July this year. However, after a ruckus over land acquisition, the Revenue Department issued a withdrawal notification through newspaper advertisements this morning.
“The TGIIC (Telangana Industrial Infrastructure Corporation), Hyderabad submitted withdrawal proposals for the above acquisition process and submitted that the acquisition for Pharma villages is withdrawn and fresh proposals shall be submitted for the acquisition
of land towards Multipurpose industrial park,” said the government in a brief note.
Incidentally, the government had issued an acquisition notification for three villages – Hakeempet, Polepally, and Lagacherla for 1274.25 acres but the withdrawal notice was issued only for Polepally and Lagacherla.
The acquisition had led to a ruckus where angry villagers confronted the Collector and other district officials and damaged their cars when they had gone to conduct a public hearing for TGIIC. The state government accused the BRS of fomenting trouble through its cadre close to the former MLA Patnam Narender Reddy. The former MLA of Kodangal from BRS was subsequently arrested.
Initially, the BRS accused the chief minister of acquiring the land for a pharma company of his son-in-law but later alleged it was meant for the Adani Group. When the chief minister stated that the land was being acquired for a multipurpose industrial park and not for a pharma unit, the Opposition party, citing the land acquisition notification, claimed that it mentions the pharma village.
The BRS celebrated the withdrawal notice issued by the government as a victory for the party which had supported the farmers’ movement against the project.