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In Telangana’s Gajwel, reservoir evacuees face uncertain future
Campaigning for the Telangana assembly elections is in full swing, but villagers in Gajwel constituency seem disillusioned. Despite having access to basic amenities like houses, electricity, and drinking water, they lack employment opportunities. Many of them were relocated from submerged villages to make way for the Mallannasagar reservoir. The government promised better compensation, but nothing was done. The upcoming elections have not instilled hope in the villagers, who feel they have been deceived by political leaders.
Mutrajpalli (Gajwel), Telangana: With three weeks left for polling for the Telangana assembly elections, campaigning is reaching a feverish pitch in Gajwel constituency in Siddipet district, where Bharat Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is up against his former protege Eatala Rajender, who is now with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The buzz generally associated with a high-stakes electoral battle is missing among the people at Mutrajpally village, just about four kilometres away from Gajwel town. The villagers seem diffident, a sense of despair clearly evident amongst them.
Which is strange. All of them have pucca double-bedroom houses – each built on a 250 square yards of plot with a compound wall and gate and good road connectivity. All of them have electricity supply and drinking water connections under Mission Bhagiratha, the flagship programme of the BRS government.
All that they don’t have is work.
In fact, Mutrajpally is not their original village. It is a huge colony constructed for the rehabilitation and resettlement of around 20,000 people from 14 villages that were submerged by the Mallannasagar reservoir constructed as part of the gigantic Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project on Godavari river.
Mallannasagar is the largest artificial water body in India with a capacity to store 50 tmc ft (thousand million cubic feet) of water lifted from Godavari through the Kaleshwaram scheme. Completed in February 2022 at a cost of ₹9,800 crore, it is aimed at irrigating 11.29 lakh acres of land in Telangana.
The villagers of submerged villages such as Vemulaghat, Pallepahad, Etigadda Kishtapur, Erravelli, Singaram, Banjarupalli and Laxmapur, waged a prolonged legal battle since 2016, seeking higher compensation,
“We were not opposed to the Mallannasagar project per se, but we wanted the government to pay rightful compensation, as per the Land Acquisition Act of 2013. It calls for allotment of equal area of land that is acquired, besides house for house, cattle for cattle and tree for tree. But the government authorities used coercive tactics to acquire land by paying cash compensation of ₹6 lakh to ₹7.5 lakh per acre, depending on the quality of land, besides constructing houses,” said P Janardhan of Erravelli..
A large number of farmers initially refused to part with their lands, and took the battle up to the high court, but eventually succumbed and surrendered their lands for Mallannasagar.
All of them were forced to shift to Mutrajpally, where the government constructed R&R colonies over 600 acres of land. “We lost our precious fertile land and the compensation paid by the government could have been earned by us within a couple of years. Now, we are rendered landless and are forced to work as manual labourers in the fields of other farmers,” lamented Narasimha Reddy, a farmer from Erravelli.
According to Janardhan, before the December 2018 assembly elections, BRS leaders promised to take up their fight and ensure a better compensation package. “Those days, the construction of Mallannasagar dam was yet to commence and we were given the impression that we would get better monetary compensation. In the last five years, nothing was done and we were forced to move to Mutrajpally.”
Those who have managed to find alternative jobs as farm labourers or watchmen in towns have deserted the villages. Others just gather on the benches constructed under the trees and chat. “What else can we do? We are deprived of the only profession we know,” Janardhan said.
Now that the assembly elections are round the corner, BRS leaders have once again started their rounds. “They cannot fool us again,” Srinivas Reddy of Pallepahad village said.
The situation is the same at another R&R Colony at Tuniki Bollaram village, where more than 1,139 families from six villages including Mamidyala, Bailampur and Thanedar, which were submerged under Konda Pochammasagar reservoir, also part of the Kaleshwaram project, have been rehabilitated.
The colony looks posh with wide roads, ultramodern streetlighting facility, residential houses constructed in a systematic layout, a huge overhead tank supplying drinking water to every household and a shopping complex.
But here, too, the people have no means of livelihood. “The government has given ₹10-12 lakh per acre as monetary compensation, but it is insufficient to buy even a cent of land in the nearby area. Even the money has been exhausted in the last two years on household expenses,” said G Bhikshapathi.
He said the KCR government promised to extend financial assistance for setting up of dairy units. “He promised to provide one milch buffalo to each house, but the promise was not kept. Even Dalit Bandhu scheme is not available to all the eligible families. Only a few people close to the BRS leaders got it,” Bhikshapathi said, referring to a scheme that provides assistance of ₹10 lakh to eligible SC families to start own businesses.
At Vargal block, the villagers of several tribal hamlets including Ramakkapeta, Ausalonipalle, Nagaram Thanda, Mulugu, Sadarpalle and Marredpalle, have a different story. Last year, the government acquired more than 1500 acres of their land, not for any project, but in the name of developing an industrial cluster close to the Hyderabad-Karimnagar highway.
“We were paid just ₹6 lakh per acre and promised a residential house. But no industry has come up till now and we came to know that some BRS leaders themselves have been allotted the land for development of rice mills and granite polishing units,” Ch Narasimhulu of Ramakkapet village, who lost four acres of land, said.
He demanded that the government provide a job to at least one of the members of the affected families. “Recently, state finance minister T Harish Rao held a meeting with some of our village elders and promised to take up our demands. Let us what happens.”
HT reached out to officials and ministers concerned for a response but did not get one immediately.
