Page 129 - HUDCO BEST PRACTICE AWARDS

Year 2016-17

initiatiVeS in Voluntary land poolinG ScheMe for

development of amaravati city by andhra pradesh capital region

development authority

long the banks of the river Krishna, Andhra Pradesh’s New
A Capital City - Amaravati was to be created, spreading over
an area of 217.23 sq.km, covering 29 villages that was inhabited by
almost 1,20,000 people of Guntur district. The major challenge in
this NEW CITY forming process was regarding availability of land.
The core of Amaravati was planned on 33,000 acres of land, owned
by individual farmers (both dry and fertile lands) stretching from
between Vijayawada to Thullur. ‘The Right To Fair Compensation and
Transparency In Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act,
2013’ mandates certain safeguard measures to be followed including
a ‘Social Impact Assessment’ by an expert committee and a detailed
plan for rehabilitating the original land owners, which generally makes
the land procuring process a time consuming task , also opening room
for variety of contentions.
Hence, the Government of Andhra Pradesh, through Andhra Pradesh
Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA), adopted the
‘Land Pooling Scheme’ (LPS) as the best approach to address this
challenge. The focus of the scheme was voluntary land pooling
from land owners/farmers with least displacement and minimal Registration process for land pooling
legal hurdles, also providing for compensation by way of allotment
of developed residential and commercial plots out of lands thus
pooled, to the original land owners along with an annuity financial
commitment for 10 years, and waiver of agricultural loans. The LPS
implementation involved conducting socio-economic survey, issuing
notification, receiving consent of farmers, finalizing compensation
package, confirming title and execution of agreement for conferring of
ownership rights, finalization of City Master Plan, layout finalization and
allotment of plots, issuance of Ownership certificate and commencing
the infrastructural development. Welfare measures including social
benefits, skill development, free health, free education, and one-time
loan waiver to the participants of the scheme as well as all other
eligible residents of the Capital City area were part of the rehabilitation
package.
As a result of such parallel actions, within 60 days, over 25,000 willing
farmers voluntarily contributed land admeasuring 33,494 acres. 42,095
residential plots and 28,637commercial plots (11,602.80 acres) were
handed over to the farmers along-with various payments to the tune of
Rs. 573 crore. The initiative also made significant impact on the living
Property mapping in GIS, Telangana conditions, as the communities rehabilitated, could become financially
sound with better marketability options, due to increase in the land
prices, waiver of agricultural loans and improved credit facilities. Detailed Master Plan of Amravati City

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