Vizianagaram: Officials gear up to solve land acquisition issues

Vizianagaram: The district administration is gearing up to complete the land acquisition process for the proposed Bhogapuram international airport.

The government has notified 2,700 acres but some farmers approached the High Court, stalling the process.

The administration is making necessary arrangements to solve the legal issues and to pave the way to start the works soon.

The GMR Airports Limited has bagged the bid to construct to airport and signed an MoU with the state government.

Later, the state government instructed the district officials to complete the land acquisition and pave the way to initiate works as soon as possible.

Out of the notified 2,700 acres, 2,200 acres will be handed over to GMR Airports Limited to develop the airport with international standards and the rest of 500 acres will be under the control of the state government. It is expected that other aviation allied industries would also come up in this land.

The farmers of Bhogapuram and Polipalli villages approached High Court against the project. The officials are looking into all the legal hurdles and trying to clear them. The revenue officers were instructed to take all the notified lands into their possession and complete all the process as soon as possible. As of now, the farmers belonging to Savaravilli, A Ravivalasa, Raavada, Gudepuvalasa have approached the court regarding 89.47 acres of lands and now the officials are discussing with the farmers to solve the issue.

Meanwhile, the officials are consulting the forest officials to clear the hurdle for acquisition of forest land.