The Jagan Mohan Reddy government has at last announcement payment of annuity to the farmers of Amaravati this year, not before the issue snowballed into a law and order issue.
Minister for Urban Development and Municipal Administration Botsa Satyanarayana on Thursday announced that the government had released Rs 158 crore towards annuity payment to farmers who had given away their lands for the capital city at Amaravati.
“Besides, another Rs 9.73 crore would be paid to the landless poor working as agriculture labourers in these lands. The amount would be credited to their respective accounts in a day or two,” Botsa said.
He claimed that the government had already made budgetary releases for the annuity payments to farmers of Amaravati, but could not do so due to technical issues.
“But some political parties are instigating the farmers against the government for their selfish ends. The government will not do any injustice to the farmers,” Botsa said.
On Wednesday, the farmers of Amaravati laid siege to the office of AP Capital Region Development Authority in Vijayawada and got arrested by the police for demanding payment of annuity due to them in June.
On Thursday, some of them knocked the doors of the state high court moved the high court questioning the delay in annuity payment for their lands surrendered to the state government for construction of capital in 2015, despite earlier court orders.
As per the agreement signed with the APCRDA in 2015, each farmer has to be paid yearly amount of Rs 30,000 per acre for drylands to Rs 50,000 per acre for wetlands for a period of 10 years. Besides, landless poor who were working as agriculture labourer in the surrendered lands have to be paid Rs 2,500 per month.
The high court ordered that the government pay the amount due to the farmers be paid within the next two days.