KCR announces Girijana Bandhu

Hyderabad: In tune with his recent promise, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Friday announced that Girijana Bandhu scheme will be implemented soon in the state and would start distributing Podu lands from February-end and they will be made eligible for Rythu Bandhu and free power.

But this announcement comes with a rider. He said the condition is that elected representatives from the Tribal community from Sarpanch to MPTC should give a written undertaking stating that they will not indulge in any further encroachments. If that happens, the licence granted to them would be withdrawn and they would become ineligible for all benefits.

The Assembly also sent a resolution to the Centre urging it to include communities like Valmiki Boya and others in the list of Scheduled Tribes.

The Opposition parties while welcoming this announcement of the Chief Minister however questioned the timing and felt that it was election-oriented announcement.

The Chief Minister made this announcement when the issue of Podu land came up during the Question Hour in the Assembly on Friday.

Tribal Affairs Minister Satyavathi Rathod was replying to the question raised by Congress member Podem Veeraiah when the Chief Minister intervened to make this announcement.

KCR said Podu lands were not the right of the tribals. They were cultivating on encroached lands.

He blamed the previous governments for this situation and said that they had used the issue for electoral politics. He said there should be forest wealth and forest cover in the wake of global warming and the government had taken several steps to increase green cover by 7.8 per cent. The government has clarity on this and had no objection to giving them the land on which they were cultivating now. The Chief Minister further said that the state has 66 lakh acres of forest land and a survey by then Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, there is about 11.5 lakh acres of Podu land. The Chief Minister took strong objection to the tribals killing FRO Srinivas recently. He said the government would give the rights but with a condition that the tribals will not encroach the lands further. He said the government will not spare anyone who would encroach on the Podu lands. He also said that armed security personnel would also be deployed at the forest. The Chief Minister also asked the forest officials not to incite the tribals.