State to issue pattas to 50K hill residents

Vijayawada: The State government’s decision towards giving pattas to residents of hill slopes in the city and other government sites will benefit the ruling party prospects in Vijayawada city largely.

Though the TDP has stronghold in the city, the Opposition YSRCP and the Left parties also have a sizable vote bank in some pockets of area. Now, the TDP has focused its attention on some vote banks to get support from those sections by solving the decades old house pattas allotment problem.

The State government already passed a resolution in this regard two days ago. The leaders of hill areas met Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and expressed their gratitude to him. Nearly 50,000 families which form two lakh people would get benefit and they can get pattas and utilise their pattas as asset documents to get loans from scheduled banks and funding agencies.

Nearly two lakh people are living on hill slopes and other government sites for the last two decades. The people of poorer sections encroached the hills at several areas like Mogulrajapuram, Christurajapuram, Machavaram, Gunadala, Vidyadharapuram, Bhavanipuram and One Town several decades ago.

Majority of them even constructed permanent structures and a few of them are living in temporary huts. They have been living on hills for the last several decades and the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation also provided drinking water, roads and street lighting to them.

But they have no right to mortgage or sell house sites and houses. The present government orders provide eligibility to get house loan or mortgage their property. In this backdrop, they approached governments for house pattas.

The Congress government gave assurance to them in the past but it was not materialised due to various reasons. Now, the State government solved the issue. MLA Gadde Rammohan said that the TDP government solved the decades-old problem and won the hearts of poorer sections.