Date:28/01/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/28/stories/2005012807590400.htm

Andhra Pradesh

TDP demands all-party panel

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, JAN. 27. The Telugu Desam Legislature Party has demanded the constitution of an all-party committee, including the CPI (Maoist) to look into the issue of `imbalances' in land holdings and plan for "real distribution" of land for the poorest of the poor.

At a press conference here on Thursday, the TDP MLA, Ch. Rajeswara Rao, said that there was nothing new in the much-talked-about land distribution programme launched by the Government on Republic Day.

`Nothing new'

He ridiculed the claim of the Government that 1.5 lakh acres of land was distributed to the poorest of poor and said the Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, and his Cabinet colleagues had only distributed `papers'.

What was really required, he said was distribution of endowments and surplus lands, specially those still in the possession of landlords in the State. "Not even one acre of the 1.5 lakh acres is new".

Mr. Rao said that it was the late N.T. Rama Rao who first started giving away assets in the name of the women in the family.

The sum of Rs. 500 crores which the Government claimed to have set apart for land development schemes too, was money allocated for the National Wastelands Development Programme.

If the Government was sincere about helping the poor, it should constitute the all-party committee and chalk out a clear programme to distribute surplus land holdings.