Land-For-Crops Or Land-For-Cash? Ex-IAS Officer Claims Andhra Farmers Forced To Sell Properties To Babu-Realtor Mafia

E A S Sarma, the former energy secretary, has asked the Andhra Pradesh government to call back orders that allotted lands taken away from farmers through coercive methods to retired civil servants, reports Telangana Today.

Referring to a government notification, the former secretary said the government had allegedly acquired farmlands in the guise of “land pooling” or through the use of regressive land acquisition laws. Agricultural land, including D-Patta land, which in my places is ploughed by SC/ST communities, was taken away “in the guise of public purpose” to serve the ends of returned government employees.

“In the process, not only the farming community but also a large number of landless tenants and agricultural workers have lost their livelihoods. The lands so acquired are being wantonly given away to foreign and domestic real estate companies and many profit-making private institutions at throwaway prices. The whole process of this exercise has become a means to benefit real estate businesses at the cost of agriculture and at the cost of the marginal farmers. The State’s civil servants are well aware of this. Some of them may even have been a part of this unsavoury exercise,” he noted.

It was reported in November 2018 that Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) had booked an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, a junior I-T employee and a husband-wife chartered accountant (CA) duo for allegedly accepting bribe worth lakhs of rupees to ‘settle’ a case of scrutiny assessment.

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