Hyderabad: The people of Yacharam Mandal of Ranga Reddy District have been opposing the setting up of the Hyderabad Pharma City project in the region, stating that it will mean a death knell to their livelihoods, their lives and their future. At first, when we opposed the project and refused to give our lands, the authorities have said that since the assigned land pattas were given by the government, they had a right to take it away. At that time they promised that they will not take the patta lands, representatives of Movement against Pharma City, K N Das Pasula Kapari, Jakkula Venkatesh, Yadav Reddy and Saraswati Kavula, told media persons at Hyderguda NSS here today.
The project is to come up on 19,333 acres of land across three mandals — Yacharam, Kandukur and Kadthal, which fall in Ibrahimpatnam, Maheshwaram and Kalwakurthy Assembly constituencies respectively.
The representatives said that they took our assigned lands and so far we have not received proper compensation for that. When they had come to acquire our patta lands against their promise, we had raised objections and have been following the rules of the LARR Act and so far been able to stop the land acquisition of the patta lands in Medipally village. It is true that some of us have given the lands for the Pharma City, because of their needs and also because many times the Revenue officials had threatened us that if we didn’t give our lands, they will simply use the PD and take away our lands. All along the people of our Mandal have opposed the setting up of the Pharma City Project. We tried to voice our Concerns in the Environmental Public Hearing held on 11 th October 2017. However, most of us were arrested and the rest were prevented from participating in the EPH. We have raised this issue with the TSPCB, the Ministry of Environment & Forests, numerous times. We had also written to the Environmental Appraisal Committee chairman and members with a detailed Bio-diversity report and also about all the ways in which people’s voice has been suppressed in the EPH. We had demanded that fresh Public Hearings should be conducted in all the affected villages. We also wrote to the Ministry of Commerce to not accord NIMZ status to the HPC, since the GO 123 and GO 45 under which all the assigned lands have been acquired had been suspended by the High Court.
Despite all the presentation of evidences the Central Government had granted the Environmental Clearance to the Hyderabad Pharma City against the wishes of the local people. However, the only relief we got from the Central Government was that the EC was subject to a condition, that farmers’ lands should be acquired only with consent and there should not be any forcible acquisition. However, this Monday when our farmers from Tathiparthy village went to give their objections to the land acquisition notification and met the DRO and JC in the Praja Vani, they were told mercilessly that come what may with or without their consent their lands shall be acquired. This is the way in which a democratically elected government is behaving. We realized that so far our voices were not being heard outside as we were only speaking to local media in Yacharam.
They said that if this project comes up it will mean a death knell to their lives and livelihoods. This project will not just harm us but will be dangerous for4 the entire region in the 50 Km radius touching up to Hyderabad, they added. (NSS)
