Chirala: Diversion of handloom park land to house sites opposed

Chirala: The weavers' Associations here on Tuesday appealed to Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy not to allot the land, earmarked for handloom park, for house sites. The land for handloom park was sanctioned by Y S Rajasekhara Reddy when he was the Chief Minister, they said.

The handloom workers' leaders Janjanam Srinivasa Rao, Damarla Srikrishna, Bandaru Jwala Narasimham, Anubhav Venkateswarlu, Macharla Mohanrao, Goli Anand Rao, Meda Venkatrao, Kanna Lakshmarao and others sent a representation to the Chief Minister, explaining that YSR had allotted 50.36 acres of land at Challareddy Palem under Vetapalem madal in 2005 for the benefit of nearly 60,000 weavers in Prakasam district.

The then government had sancitoned the project at a cost of Rs 769.63 lakh. The State and Central government share the cost of the project.

YSR allotted the land to be used for the weavers' training centre, handloom research centre, handloom procurement centre, district handloom office, common treatment plant for the local dyeing industries, and for the handloom export centre.

However, in 2012, the then government allotted a part of the land, 23.55 acres, for the construction of 412 houses under the scheme, Konjeti Chenethapuri.

On repeated requests for the construction of the handloom park, the Director of the AP Handlooms and Textiles Department directed the District Collector to utilise the land for the handloom park only.

The weavers' leaders explained that the local officials selected the remaining land of 26.81 acres for the YSR housing scheme, and thus negating the former Chief Minister's efforts to help the weavers' community.

The leaders said there were hundreds of acres of unassigned land in Vetapalem mandal which can be utilised for the housing scheme. They requested him to direct the district administration to select the land for housing scheme elsewhere and fulfil the promise made by YSR to the weavers.

The weavers' leader Macharla Mohan Rao requested the Chief Minister to consider the weavers who are weaving on own looms installed in own or rented common work sheds for the financial assistance of Rs 24,000 under the YSR Nethanna Nestham program.

He explained that those who do not own houses or land have fixed their own looms in the common work sheds, but with just a gap of two to three feet in them.