Industrial zone master plans for Kamareddy & Jagtial withdrawn

KAMAREDDY, Telangana: Due to heavy protests against the development of an industrial zone, draft master plans introduced for Kamaredyy and Jatial municipalities have been withdrawn by the respective district councils on Friday, January 20.

Draft master plans faced stiff opposition from the farmers, and the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of farmers only ended their protest when the two municipal councils passed resolutions to withdraw the draft plans.

Resolutions to this effect were passed in the council meeting of Kamareddy and Jagtial urban local bodies (ULBs). Thereafter, copies of resolutions were sent to the Government of Telangana for further action.

In the meantime, Arvind Kumar, Special Chief Secretary, Municipal Administration & Urban Development, held a review meeting with Collector, Additional Collector and Municipal Commissioner at the Kamareddy Collectorate to discuss putting the draft master plan on hold till all the stakeholders reach a consensus over the issue. He posted on his twitter account, “Had detailed review with @Collector_KMR reg the draft Master Plan for Kamareddy today. There’s need to engage with farmers & landowners especially erstwhile GPs now merged with Kamareddy & the draft plan is put on hold indefinitely until the process is done through consensus.”

Jahnavi, Chairperson of Kamareddy Municipal Council, informed the media that district administration has decided to withdraw the plan to give justice to the farmers. She said, “We will not do anything which is against the interest of farmers.”

The farmers celebrated this decision and greeted each other with great rejoicing. The farmer community was not happy with the draft master plan, as they feared that their lands would be taken away for the development of the proposed industrial zone. They were also worried that the prices of their lands would fall drastically if an industrial zone is built there. As part of the master plan, an agency was selected to prepare a new master plan for the town for the next 20 years. Later it was approved by the concerned council and put in the public domain on November 13, to invite suggestions from people. But it did not alleviate their fears. Farmers alleged that a total of 1,210 acres of agricultural lands in seven villages have been brought under the industrial and green zone for the draft plan. They said that the civic bodies are eying farmers’ land for building industrial zone instead of land allocated to real estate developers for commercial and residential projects.