TT Impact : Officials demolish fish ponds amid pressures from Congress leaders

Irrigation officials demolished several illegal fish ponds built on encroached Singur project lands in Vatpally mandal after a media report highlighted the issue. Allegations of political backing emerged, while demands grew for a comprehensive survey and action against encroachers

Sangareddy: Irrigation officials demolished about eight illegally built fish ponds on Monday after Telangana Today recently exposed the mushrooming of fish ponds in the FTL lands of the Singur project in a news report. There were 38 fish ponds, built by encroaching about 120 acres of Singur project land, in Vatpally mandal alone. Though the irrigation officials were engaged in demolishing them till late evening, ruling party leaders were mounting pressure on the officials seeking some time. While some Congress leaders owned fish ponds, some other Congress leaders were backing the encroachers.

There were allegations that the officials were demolishing only those fish ponds in which no fish were being reared. The owners of the remaining ponds have sought some time to remove the fish. However, the officials were still at the site and said they had directions from higher authorities to remove each and every pond.

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Not only in Vatpally mandal, dozens of fish ponds were built in Rakikode, Manoor, Andole and Nyalkal mandals along the shores of the Singur project by encroaching a huge extent of project land. Exploiting the water resources, the owners were pumping water from the Singur reservoir to the fish ponds in addition to using free electricity supply. There were allegations that the owners of the fish ponds had the support of officials from the police, Transco, irrigation, revenue and fisheries departments.

BRS leader Chanti Kranthi Kiran demanded that the government conduct a survey along the shores of the project in all five mandals to identify the encroachments. Apart from demolishing them, he demanded that the government register cases against the encroachers besides suspending the officials responsible.