Govt awards doctor who exploits tribals: key in hand of a plundererfuelling yet another land struggle (?)
Badal Tah,Odishabarta
Rayagada, June 4: Dr Rammohan Rao, who has been defrauding tribals in Rayagada district, was given responsibility of Koraput district by horticulture department of Odisha government for promotion of oil palm cultivation and extraction of palm oil by establishing an oil mill in Koraput and extending huge subsidy in crores of rupees.
State Govt is doing undue favour to the Andhra businessmen, who has illegally cultivated oil palm trees for years and kept the land of Rayagada tribals in coercion. Dr Rao’s plan is afoot to sign an MoU with the State Horticulture Department for allotting him Koraput District without any tender or Expression of Interest(EoI).
The department was in a hurry to sign the contract on May 30th, even after the Tahsildar of Bandhugaon, Koraput filed FIR in the name of Rao, who trespassed into government land by force to cultivate oil palm trees. After this decision by the government of signing of MoU with Rao, there is now a fear that the peaceful environment is likely to repeat yet another land movement in the region. This raises question among the localities that the environment may become disturbed & turbulent again.
Rao is the director of Karshak Maharshi Oil Pvt Ltd. He is resident of newly formed Parvathipuram district of Andhra Pradesh bordering Rayagada & Koraput districts. Though he is a doctor by profession, he is blooming with greed to usurp tribal land by benami transfer. He is addicted to cultivating palm oil by illegally occupying the land. He has kept the tribal & poor people’s land under his control for the last 17 to 25 years in the guise of lease and is expanding his dominion under the name of palm oil cultivation. Thousands of acres of tribal land and non-tribal land are under his control in Gunpur and Rayagada. There is no statutory agreement either done by registration authority or by the revenue department. Rao has been defrauding the tribals of Rayagada district for years by paying 4 to 6 thousand rupees per acre per year. He has not even spared government land amounting 30 to 40 acres in the neighbouring Koraput district. That’s why the Tahsildar of Bandhugaon erected red flags on the said land, issued Section 144 there and filed a case in the name of the doctor.
Rao’s eyes on land in Rayagada & Koraput is not new. Since around 2003, he has prepared a plan to usurp tribal lands here. Taking the tribal land in the form of a benami lease and joining hands with the horticulture department, the doctor set up a palm oil mill in the border village of Atada and took a loan of Rs. 11.50 crores from the bank and got subsidy of around Rs.5 crores from state govt. A few years later, he pretended the industry to be sick by foul play, closed the mill permanently and took all the equipments to AP and sold the mill for 20 crores rupees. While major raw materials namely Fresh Fruits Bunch(FBB) is produced in Rayagada & Koraput, they are taken to AP and Rao makes huge profit leaving a pittance for the local farmers of Odisha. Unfortunately the administration here is a mere spectator & hand in glove with his illegal activity.
The directorate of horticulture has recently awarded the responsibility of Koraput district to Rao’s Karshak Maharshi Oil Pvt Ltd. Rao, who is earning crores of rupees by illegally planting trees on tribal & poor people’s land in Rayagada district, will now promote palm oil cultivation in Koraput district and swallow crores of rupees from the government as subsidy for promotional activities. The State Horticulture Department sent a letter vide number 5450 on May 20th to Rao, Director of Karshak Maharshi Oil Private Limited to sign the MoU in Bhubaneswar.
It is a fact that peace has been restored in this region after sacrifice of many farmers due to land movement in the past. But unrest may resurface after the MoU with Rao’s Company. It will again be a Sahukar Raj in the tribal lands according to Radhakrishna Acharya, a social worker of the area.
Karshak Company has been registered by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, GOI & is less than a year and two months old. According to the rules, the company that wins the BID, preferably should have experience in palm oil cultivation, agriculture & horticulture in Odisha, in having a turnover of Rs.150 crores in the last financial year and a palm oil factory.
But even though the company does not meet any of these criteria, government is making an agreement with it, which raises serious doubts. Bijaya Mishra, a leading farmer of the district, an awardee of agriculture department of Odisha government, demanded that this company’s contract must be cancelled and responsibility to another qualified company may be given with immediate effect.
