Ever-eluding cotton park shatters people’s hopes

Khammam: Despondency is writ large on the faces of farmers who gave away their fertile land to the government for setting up a Cotton Park as they find themselves exactly on the flipside of their hope, even after a dozen years. What they dreamt was economical growth of their region which is one of the largest fibre producing districts in the country.

Back in 2006, the then Congress government mooted a proposal for setting up a Cotton Park at Annargudem village under Tallada mandal where farmers used to produce two crops a year. Although there was stiff resistance from the farmers whose land was subject matter for acquisition, the government lured them promising employment and local economic development ‘bait’.

The government then acquired 48 acres through Industrial Infrastructure Corporation. The farmers were paid anywhere between Rs 60,000 and Rs 1.20 lakh per acre. Since then, twelve years have now gone by, however, the proposed Cotton Park remains an elusive dream for the locals, but instead there came a chemical unit. Leastways, the displaced farmers would have earned Rs 10 lakh per each acre in the last 12 years through agriculture. As if it was not enough, the locals are now bearing the brunt of pollution emanated from the chemical unit.

But for a ginning mill, the land allotted to others has nothing to do with the cotton ancillary industries. Speaking to The Hans India, TSIIC Khammam Zonal Manager A Pavan Kumar said, “Although the land was acquired exclusively for the cotton park, the government had converted it for the use of other industries. So far, we have allotted land for 10-odd industries.” When asked about the contamination of groundwater due to a chemical unit, he said that people could approach the Pollution Control Board (PCB) if they had any grievance.

Govindu Srinivasa Rao, a local farmer whose family lost five acres to the proposed cotton park, said, “Under pressure from different quarters and hoping jobs to local youths, we conceded our fertile lands to the cotton park, but in return what we are getting is polluted environs. We the residents of Annargudem, Balapet, Gopalpet and Narsimharaopet knocked the door of the district administration and all the people’s representatives of the region and staged protests demanding either to set up cotton park or to return our lands but in vain.”

The government which acquired our land at throwaway prices in the name of local economic development is now benefitting the big industrialists.
Cotton park would have helped the local farmers immensely as cotton is one of the predominant crops cultivated in the region. It was a well-hatched plan to help the big industrialists, he alleged.

Meanwhile, the residents alleged that the effluents released from the chemical unit were not only polluting local environs but also posing threat to Wyra Reservoir which is just about three kms from the site.

It may be noted here that two streams – Bapatavagu and Arikayalapadu Eru – that pass close to the industrial zone before culminating in Wyra Reservoir, which in the very near future will cater to the drinking water needs of people of 11 mandals under Mission Bhagiratha, are in danger of being polluted, Srinivasa Rao said.

The locals say that acquiring land in the name of cotton park was a well-hatched plan of some leaders and industrialists to snatch the fertile lands of the locals and convert into industrial zone.