AP to distribute 100,000 acres of land on R-Day

In what appears to be a move to neutralise the Naxalites in the state, Andhra Pradesh is poised to set a record of sorts by distributing 100,000 acres of land to the poor on the forthcoming Republic Day.

The government has set a target of distributing 114,513 acres spread across 22 districts among the poor. It has asked district collectors to identify suitable land and prepare a list of potential beneficiaries.

Addressing the two-day district collectors' conference in Hyderabad on Thursday, Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy said, "No other state has ever attempted to distribute 100,000 acres on a single day. And, this is just the beginning. The government has constituted a committee headed by Municipal Administration Minister Koneru Ranga Rao to evolve an action plan to distribute land among the landless within six months."

The committee will go round the districts and identify surplus or government land, which could be distributed to the weaker sections. It will study the present method of distribution of land and come up with ways to make it more effective. It will study related laws relating to land under state government control, barren land, fallow tank beds, endowments land, surplus land and land donated by philanthropists and suggest suitable amendments.

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The constitution of the committee is a follow-up on the government's promise to take up land distribution, which is on the agenda of the Naxalites and Left parties in the state. Equal distribution of land has been one of the main demands of the Naxalites, who had been running a violent campaign against large land owners in the state.

Since Independence, the state has assigned about 394,000 acres of government to 272,000 landless families. But the beneficiaries could not take up cultivation as the land was undeveloped all these years.

Hence, the government has launched a comprehensive land development programme - Indira Prabha Scheme - to make the land cultivable, at a cost of Rs 500 crore. It envisages a wide range of activities such as bush clearance, levelling of land, soil and moisture conservation, micro-irrigation, creation of infrastructure facilities such as cattle improvement centres and service centres for farmers to provide sustainable livelihood.

This is the first phase of a long-term strategy for development of all assigned land in a comprehensive manner.