Hyderabad: In a win-win situation for both the Chenchus and the forest department, caught in a land ownership tussle for the past few years, 23 families of Chenchus living in Macharam village of Amrabad mandal in Nagarkurnool district have been given ownership of 30 acres of land in question.
The icing on the cake is Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy launching the state government’s highly anticipated “Indira Soura Giri Jala Vikasam” scheme’s pilot project from Macharam on May 18.
Under the scheme, selected villages in the agency areas will undergo geological surveys to identify water resources, followed by the drilling of borewells and the installation of solar-powered pump sets.
It is designed to provide irrigation facilities to 2,10,000 tribal farmers over the next five years, covering 6,00,000 acres of land, for which the state government has allocated Rs 112,600 crore in this year’s budget.
In Macharam, there are 80 acres of land, out of which 30 acres of forest land was under dispute between the Chenchus and the forest department. The dispute had turned bitter in the last few years whenever the forest officials tried to lay trenches and plant saplings in the disputed land.
In July 2021, cases were filed against 7 Chenchus when they poured petrol over a forest official during an argument on the disputed land, when the forest officials tried to conduct a survey to plant saplings on the disputed land.
On 2 July 2024, women and child welfare minister Danasari Anasuya alias Seethakka had assured the Chenchus that their rightful claim on the ownership of the land would be protected. During a meeting in Mannanur, she had urged both the Chenchus and the forest officials to exercise restraint.
With the forest department finally agreeing not to stake a claim to the ownership of that land, the path has been cleared for the Chenchus to grow crops, which had been halted for the past 3 years or so.
Though the 23 families have been included as the owners of those 30 acres, they have yet to receive the Recognition of Forest Rights (RoFR) pattas for those lands.
According to Peddi Raju, former sarpanch of Macharam, the officials have dug 17 borewells to provide irrigation to those lands, and 3 more borewells will be dug in the next couple of days. He told Siasat.com that solar pump sets were fitted to the borewells, which will run on solar power.
He also informed that saplings of fruit-bearing trees were planted in their lands in the past few days, which include lemon, sweet lime, mango and avocado inside the land, coconut and bamboo plants on the boundaries of the land.
The decision to encourage horticultural crops under the scheme turns out to be a smart move by the state government, which not only helps protect and increase greenery in the forest areas but also aids in improving the health of the tribals who will be consuming the fruits grown on their own fields.
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