Karimnagar: Government lays special focus on Podu land solution

Karimnagar: The Telangana government has paid a special attention to address the Podu lands issue and has started accepting applications from Podu farmers in erstwhile Karimnagar district.

After receiving the applications by December 8, the government will take steps to resolve the Podu land issues. IT Minister KTR had held a review meeting on the situation recently and had made several suggestions to the authorities. Village committees have been set up under the Forest Rights Recognition Act 2006. A nodal officer was appointed for each of the two to three villages. RDO at the sub-divisional level and Collectors at the district level oversee the process. Steps will be taken to collect details of occupied forest lands from the Forest and Revenue Departments to issue title deeds to eligible farmers. Over the years, the clashes between the Podu cultivators and the forest-revenue departments have been occurring repeatedly. Jagtial, Peddapalli and Sircilla districts have forest lands while there is major no forest cover in Karimnagar district. In all there is an extent of huge acres of Podu lands in erstwhile Karimnagar district. In Jagtial, the forests are spread over 59,785 hectares in 18 mandals.

According to Welfare Minister Koppula Eshwar more than 6,684 acres of forest land in 45 villages in 12 mandals have been encroached upon. Earlier, the Revenue Department had estimated that more than 4,000 acres of forest land in the Virpur and Sarangpur mandals and in Sarangpur mandals 458.35 acres of land is in dispute. Forest and Revenue officials have completed a joint survey in Peddapalli district. There are 76,720.85 acres of forest land in the district.

The district has 6,312 acres of Podu land. It is learnt that forest lands have been encroached in Manthani, Chinna Odela, Gopalpur, Mutharam, Maidambanda, Kammampa, Adavi Srirampur as well as Ramagiri and Begumpet mandals. 4,669 acres of land was found to be in dispute between the Forest and Revenue Departments. In Rajanna Sircilla district, Minister KTR himself entered the field for the permanent settlement of Podu lands issue and reviewed the situation with public representatives from 67 villages in the district. He warned that the authorities that collusion with the middlemen would attract severe action against them. In Sircilla, forests are spread over an area of 6,394 acres and that includes 8023 acres of Podu land.