Some oustees seek houses instead of plots

It’s not possible to construct new houses: Collector

It was demand draft for ₹5.04 lakh drawn in the name of District Collector of Siddipet. Mentioning as A/C Payee dated 13/05/2021, the DD was drawn by Byagari Pochaiah, a resident of Etigaddakishtapur village newly established at Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) Colony at Mutrajpally. Soon after the DD was drawn it was handed over to sarpanch D. Pratap Reddy.

He was not alone, there are more than 40 persons from this village alone who drew DDs in the name of Collector, Siddipet, with a hope that they would be allotted houses in the R&R Colony. All these 40 plus families have opted for house-sites instead of constructed double bedroom houses in the colony and took ₹5.04 lakh from the government in lieu of houses.

However they changed their mind and preferred houses when Mr. Pratap Reddy said there were some vacant houses in the colony and interested can pay the amount to make an appeal to authorities in this regard.

From the beginning, the officials have handed over the responsibility of allotment of houses to oustees to sarpanches and other local elected representatives who convinced them to vacate villages.

As the sarpanch informed them, they had drawn DDs in the name of Collector and handed over them to the sarpanch.

“We are not always having access to higher officials. As the sarpanch is the regular communicator between officials and us, we have trusted him and handed over the DDs to him. Now it is being indicated that we have to vacate these houses and we do not know what will be our fate. We are not yet shown the plots to construct houses,” said S. Chandrasekhar, one of the oustees who dreaw a DD.

“The Siddipet RDO has informed me that there are some houses vacant and they can be allotted to those who wish to have them. He said that they can draw the DD s in the name of Collector. These oustees entered houses with the complete knowledge of officials. When I tried to hand over the demand drafts, the RDO is not accepting to take them. Instead, there are indications that these oustees need to be vacated. They have already invested in the houses they occupied, though not allotted, to get them repaired and modified. We do not know what to do now,” Mr. Pratap Reddy said while admitting that there was no proof to show that the RDO had informed him as it was always verbal communication.

He also pointed out that there was no official allotment so far as no house was registered to oustees and many of them got modifications to them without registration.

When contacted, Collector P. Venkatarami Reddy said:

“We have no knowledge about this. All the oustees had given options and based on that the houses were constructed and now it was not possible to construct any new houses.

Some leaders in the R&R colony are trying to instigate the oustees and it was not right.”

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