CM Jagan urges Railways to give land to poor encroachers

Amaravati: In an attempt to help the poor people who have encroached upon the Railway lands in Vijayawada, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has written to Union Railway Minister Piyush Goel to impress upon the Railway Board members to accept another parcel of land of equal value in lieu.

Explaining the history of the crisis, he said that nearly 800 poor families have built houses and have been living on Railway land in Rajarajeswaripeta area within Vijayawada Municipal Corporation limits for more than 30 years.

The Chief Minister said these families made several representations to the government to regularise their encroachments and alleged that no meaningful effort was made in the past to resolve the issue.

"As the lands belonging to the Railways encroached upon by the poor families, and keeping in view the long nature of encroachments, it is proposed to offer suitable government land to the railways as part of exchange in lieu of this encroached land," offered the chief minister.

He reminded that the Railways have not made any use of this land for more than thirty years. "The substitute land identified by the State government is suitable in all respects and located within the city civic body limits. More so, the land offered in exchange is of equal value. Both the encroached land and the land proposed for exchange were inspected by a joint team of revenue (department) and railways," said the CM.

According to the chief minister, the Railway officials have also expressed their opinion to the Krishna district collector that the encroached land is of little use and the Railways would be better off to utilise the proposed land, located adjacent to the existing 25 acres of railway land in Ajith Singh Nagar of Vijayawada.