The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Greater Visakha City Committee has said that the Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Authority (VMRDA) Master Plan 2041 as a real estate plan aimed at converting agricultural land into non-agricultural land to benefit developers.
The party also alleged that the plan would snuff out the dreams of the middle and lower classes of ever owning a home.
B. Ganga Rao, the secretary of the City Committee, and R.K.S.V. Kumar, a member of the city secretariat, claimed at a press conference that the proposed master plan would lead to real estate agents pressuring farmers to sell their agricultural lands at low prices and convert them into real estate ventures.
Farmers would be evicted from their land and forced to work as migrant labourers in the city, they asserted.
The VMRDA Master Plan 2041 was opposed by the CPI(M) City Committee, which demanded that a new draught reflecting current conditions be prepared, with decentralisation as the focal point.
They asserted that the State government had reduced the process of soliciting suggestions and objections to a ritual by avoiding lengthy discussions on the master plan since its primary goal was to make money. According to them, there have been 35 agricultural mandals under VMRDA, and 41% of the people in these mandals were workers. Farmhouses, golf courses, and amusement parks would be built on the agricultural lands in these mandals. The lands would be in the hands of a few people.
Farmers who lose their lands will migrate to the city in search of work, causing the population in cities to grow even more.
The proposed draft was to provide basic infrastructure at Rs 1.40 lakh crore.
Other criticisms of the draft master plan include the transfer of agricultural lands to investors in the name of establishing industries.
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