'Only 36,559 acres of land needed for Krishna district MPIC'

A total of only 36,559 acres of land is required both for the proposed Machilipatnam deep water port and Industrial Corridor (MPIC) in Krishna district and not the staggering 1.05 lakh acres as has been claimed by state Information and Public Relations Minister Palle Raghunatha Reddy, officials said today.
Of the 36,559 acres, 13,744 acres is government land, 14,427 acres is patta (privately-owned) land and 8,388 acres is assigned land. So the government actually needs to acquire only 22,815 acres through the proposed Land Pooling Scheme (LPS).
Of the 36,559 acres, only 5,349 acres is required for the deep water port.

Krishna district officials today clarified that 1.05 lakh acres was in fact the total extent of land that has been proposed to be brought under the newly-constituted Machilipatnam Area Development Authority (MADA).
"This is spread over 426.1 sq km covering Machilipatnam town and 28 villages. It is larger than the capital city Amaravati which is only 217 sq km," a senior district official said.
"We require only 36,559 acres both for the deep water port and the industrial corridor. The port alone needs 5349 acres of this," the official told PTI here.

The state Cabinet, at its meeting on July 8, approved the establishment of MADA and also acquisition of land through LPS for the MPIC.

At the press briefing on Friday, the minister apparently bungled while announcing that 1.05 lakh acres of land would be "acquired under LPS" for the port and industrial corridor. His department also issued a press note stating the same.
The minister's office subsequently sent out a message for "television scrolls", saying, "A total of 22,000 acres of land will be pooled under LPS for Machilipatnam port...14,000 acres of patta land (privately owned) and 8,000 acres of assigned land will be pooled (step by step)".
However, district officials say even this is inaccurate.
"Only 5349 acres of land is required for the Machilipatnam deep water port. Of this 2400 acres is government land," a top revenue official said.

"In August last year, we issued a notification for acquiring 12,144 acres for the industrial corridor and 2283 acres for the port. There is 8388 acres of assigned (land) that also needs to be acquired.
"The land acquisition notification still stands and land owners may opt for either acquisition or pooling," the official said.
The state government now has to constitute special cells for the land pooling process and required number of revenue officers and employees need to be deputed.