Lingamaneni's exploits, as a close associate of Chandrababu

Who is this Lingamaneni?

Is he only the chief of Air Costa? No, but he seems to be so much more than that? He is someone who is able to break the law and capture parts of the Krishna river and build a palatial building and offer it to his political master and Andhra Pradesh chief minister. But wait, there is more…he is not only a law breaker but a law bender as well; as the law itself has turned aside to give him space. The land pooling act was only able to march up to the boundary wall of one of his properties and no further. Such is the man’s capacity!

Lingamaneni was able to acquire about 300 acres of land in the heart of two most prominent cities of Andhra Pradesh, Vijayawada and Guntur.

More and more details of the ‘babus and their proxies’ nexus in the Amaravati land scam are being revealed every day. One such evidence that points out the close association between Chandrababu and Lingamaneni Ramesh has been made available to ‘Sakshi’ recently. This evidence had not been unearthed by ‘Sakshi’ but was brought forward voluntarily by the poor. The evidence shows that poor people’s lands were illegally appropriated by Lingamaneni.

There is plenty of evidence to show that the land pooling was done in a duplicitous way, using different strokes for different folks. While well to do landowners were spared, lands belonging to the poor farmers were snatched away. So is the case with the estate that Lingamaneni owned near Nidamarru. For sparing the estate from land pooling, Lingamaneni offered up his ‘Green House’, (that sits on a patch of land in the Krishna river that was appropriated by him) to the chief minister.

Even after being aware that Lingamaneni snatched 300 acres from the poor, Chandrababu was generous towards him and turned a blind eye towards his activities.

Around 300 acres in Kaaja village of Mangalagiri of Guntur district has limestone deposits in them. Noticing this, the Associated Cement Company of Mumbai secured a 99 year leasing contract from the farmers there. In 1937 Kurmaraju Gopalaswamy, on behalf of W.H Bennets, the MD of ACC cements, secured a ‘sales’contract from the farmers. The sales contract specified that the lease would only be in force as long as the cement company was mining the lime deposits. Once the lease was over the land would go back to the original owners. However, ACC moved out of there even before the lease period was over.

What happened when Chandrababu came to power?
This land was illegally appropriated from the poor by Lingamaneni. Once Chandrababu came to power, farmers were deceived and coerced to sign blank stamp papers. These stamp papers were then used to appropriate Rs. 1500 crores worth of land with the help of Chandrababu to manage the revenue and registration departments. This was all done a few before the capital area announcement was made.

They converted this into an estate that was guarded by security personnel with CCTV cameras and security check posts. The estate was then turned into a real estate venture where the land is now priced at around Rs.5 crore per acre. These realities were brought to light by some farmers who still had the lease documents in their possession. Interestingly the Agrigold Highland that now belongs to Lokesh is right next to this estate.

‘Pakka’ evidence with the poor
The victimized poor farmers from Kaaja village allege that they have ‘pakka’ evidence that their lands are among the 300 acres that have been appropriated by Lingamaneni. They are however being prevented by the private security to identify their lands in the estate. They also revealed that all complaints to the revenue and police officials have been in vain. It is only because of the support of Chandrababu to Lingamaneni that neither the revenue nor police officials are able to lift a finger.

The victims reveal that lands in Survey Nos such as 191,192, 226 and others are included in the 300 acres that have been appropriated by Lingamaneni.

Sakshi’s expose on the inappropriate and illegal land grabbing in the capital area has encouraged a lot of victims to come forward with their documental evidence that has brought Lingamaneni’s dirty tricks to light.