Displaced Velugumatla families forced to vacate shelters in Khammam

Displaced families from Velugumatla in Khammam were asked by police and revenue officials to vacate Ambedkar Bhavan and a function hall where they had been staying after their houses were demolished. The families demanded a re-survey to identify real beneficiaries for housing.

Khammam: The police and revenue officials on Thursday forced displaced families from Velugumatla to vacate Ambedkar Bhavan and the TTDC function hall where they had been staying for the last few days after their houses were razed to the ground on February 24.

The families staged a protest stating that they had no place to go and complained that the State government had excluded them even though they were eligible to receive house pattas. They entered into arguments with officials, but in vain. The affected families alleged that the government distributed pattas to some selected ineligible families.

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Speaking to the media, members of the families, Satyanarayana Reddy, Naragani Koteswara Rao, Ravi, Seetharamulu, Kalyani, Kavitha and Jayamma, said they have been living on Bhoodan lands in Velugumatla for the last eight years by erecting huts and building houses. Some people cheated them by collecting money from them by promising to give them house plots. The survey which the district administration conducted was not done in a proper way but was completed hurriedly and real beneficiaries were left out, they noted.

They questioned why government officials gave land to those who did not belong to the colony without identifying the real beneficiaries. They said they had lived in Vinoba Navodaya Colony for years and have faced many difficulties without water or electricity supply. It was not right to do injustice to the poor who had lost everything and were thrown on the road.

A re-survey has to be carried out to identify the real beneficiaries and give them house sites or Indiramma houses, they demanded.