State relaxes water rule for Dalit bastis

To give a boost to the Dalit Basti Scheme, the state government has relaxed the norms regarding ‘availability of water sources’ (sufficient ground water) which was must for land purchase under the scheme.

Few acres of land so far distributed to the Dalits under this scheme. The revenue officials should purchase the lands only after confirming that there was enough ground water to cultivate the land to be distributed to the Dalits.

Till date, the department of Ground Water would conduct tests on the lands to be purchased for the Dalit Basti scheme and thus many lands were rejected due to lack of ground water resulting from drought conditions in the last two years.

Collector M. Jagan Mohan said that state government has given permission to the district to purchase land without taking the ground water table into consideration as most of the crops in the district are rain fed and ground water table doesn’t make much difference in cultivating these crops.

There had been a slowdown in the implementation of the Dalit Basti Scheme for a while  as there some irregularities in purchasing land in Mancherial and Sirpur (T) Assembly Constituencies, said the collector, adding that some of the people had hiked the land price to Rs 6 lakh per acre, which was actually purchased for Rs 3 land acre, before selling to the government.

So far, 673 acre purchased at Rs 22.8 crore, has been distributed to 230 beneficiaries under Dalit Basti in the district.      

It has come to light that some government land was also purchased for the scheme as sellers and officials had colluded at some places.

Officials concerned had rejected hundreds of acres of land identified at various places based on reports given by Ground Water department, stating that there was no availability of ground water sources. Now 2,000 acre of land has become available for purchase and distribution under Dalit Basti in the Adilabad district.

The Ground Water department had cleared 1,026 acre by the end of August for purchase in the district. Most land was purchased in Jainad, Tasmi , Talamadugu, Bela, Kagaznagar, Bajarhatnoor, Kubheer, Kotapalli and Sarangapoor mandals in the district.

Dalit leaders say that state government’s decision to relaxed norms on availability of ground water to purchase lands may not be serve the real purpose of the scheme aimed to distribute 3 acre of cultivable land and taking the advantage of this officials may purchase barren lands for Dalits at cheaper prices and hike the prices on paper.    

Telangana SC Cooperative Finance Corporation vice- chairman B. Jayaraj inspected the lands purchased in Kubheer mandal for Dalit Basti and found them not useful for cultivation and also found irregularities in purchasing those lands.