Tiny Telangana village defies Revanth with fiery stir against pharma hub

A tiny village near Hyderabad has revolted against the Telangana government’s plan to set up a “Pharma Village” on its “fertile” lands.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s clarification — that what has been planned at Lagacharla village in Vikarabad district is not a “Pharma Village” but a pollution-free industrial corridor — is unlikely to pacify the angry farmers. At the moment, the village is in the grip of an uneasy calm after arrests were made over an attack on the district collector in this connection.

Even to enter the village, located some 100 km from Hyderabad, you have to hoodwink the police personnel posted on the outskirts. If you manage to enter it nevertheless, no one is willing to talk. They will talk only if a local accompanies you. Taking a picture is not allowed. Phones are switched off. Even the mobile phone of a lawyer, who organised a visit by a fact-finding team, has been out of reach.

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Reddy’s pharma dreams

Lagacharla, with a population of 2,500, along with three neighbouring villages, has been identified for setting up a “Pharma Village”, one of 10 proposed across the state by the chief minister.

The village has been chosen for the first phase as it is located in the Kodangal Assembly constituency represented by the chief minister himself. Reddy was immensely confident that as his voters, the villagers would happily give away their land on a platter to bring to life his pharma dream and make land acquisition for the other nine “Pharma Villages” a cakewalk. But things have turned out otherwise.

The Lagacharla Pharma Village is expected to come up on about 1400 acres. Locals and NGOs claim that the land earmarked for it is fertile, debunking the CM’s claim that it was an arid zone inhabited by lizards. The villagers argue that when government land is available nearby, why does Reddy want them to sacrifice their land?

Since the village is merely an hour and a half away from capital city Hyderabad and forms part of a VVIP constituency, every villager is aware of the market value of their land. The talk among the villagers is that an acre costs around Rs 60 lakh. According to the Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV), which works for the welfare of farmers, the compensation offered by the government is a pittance in comparison.

“The government has offered three times its usual rate (Rs 30 lakh) as compensation along with a two-bedroom (2BHK) house. Many of the villagers already own bigger houses than that. None of the villagers is ready to part with their ancestral land for the Pharma Village,” said RSV convener Kanneganti Ravi.

Hyperactivity of Opposition

Ever since the chief minister announced the establishment of a “Pharma Village” in February this year, Lagacharla has never ceased to be in the headlines. Visits by leaders of opposition parties, including the BRS, the BJP, and those of the Left Front, have deeply politicized the village. Numerous civil society organizations have also lent moral support to the farmers’ resistance.

The BRS has grabbed this golden opportunity to salvage its image and is at the forefront of the resistance against the “land-grabbing” government. The party’s working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) led a Maha Dharna on November 25 at Manukota in Mahabubabad district in support of Lagacharla farmers and called for a revolt against the acquisition of land of the poor.

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The BJP’s firebrand MP DK Aruna, who hails from the region, has vowed that she would not let farmers’ agricultural land be grabbed under the guise of an industrial corridor or Pharma Village.

This hyperactivity of politicians has created a sense of security among the farmers, prompting the chief minister to change tack on Pharma Village.

Attack on government officials

The villagers’ anger found a vent in the attack on Vikarabad District Collector Prateek Jain on November 11. Villagers chased the collector’s convoy out of the village by pelting the cars with stones, leading to an unprecedented police deployment, arrests, and alleged midnight knocks and harassment. Former BRS MLA Patnam Narendra Reddy and many male members of the village were taken into custody even though the collector clarified that he was unharmed.

As the people complained of “police harassment, physical abuse, and false criminal charges”, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) deputed a team to submit a report on the village’s situation. According to NHRC, “complaints have been submitted by at least 12 victims who visited the Commission praying for its intervention to save them from starvation”.

Project to displace 1 lakh farmers

Stating that the problem arose as the government chose to set up a pharma hub on fertile lands, M Raghavachari, convener of the Palamuru Adhyayana Vedika, which visited the village last week, said the Lagacharla plan should be abandoned.

“The government intends to acquire 25,000 acres for 10 Pharma Villages, which means displacement of about 1 lakh farmers. When farmers are opposed to the project, the government is not supposed to impose it on the people,” Raghavachari asserted.

Many feel that with its eight-month-long agitation, the little-known village, mostly inhabited by Scheduled Tribes and OBCs, has dealt a severe blow to Revanth Reddy’s confidence. The fierce resistance from the villagers is expected to have a cascading effect on the remaining Pharma Villages proposed in the other districts as well.

Also read: SC recaps 7 Constitutional rights of landowners against arbitrary acquisition

History repeating itself

Interestingly, all of this is reminiscent of previous chief minister K Chadrasekhar Rao’s land-hungry development model around Hyderabad. In fact, the “Pharma Village” plan has been proposed as a replacement of the previous BRS government’s ambitious 10,000-acre Pharma City plan. According to IT Minister D Sridhar Babu, the Pharma City was scrapped due to objections from the farming community as well as litigations surrounding land acquisition. What is happening now is history repeating itself.

During the 2023 Assembly polls, KCR’s defeat in Kamareddy, 100 km from Hyderabad, the second constituency he contested, was largely attributed to the fear of the poor of losing land for the proposed Kamareddy Master Plan. The master plans of nearly 50 municipalities were revoked following Kamareddy’s revolt, and KCR lost the election.

“Regarding industrialization, there is not much difference between the previous KCR government and that of Revanth Reddy,” said Kanneganti Ravi. Reddy’s proposed Pharma Villages are also located on valuable plots reachable in 90 minutes around Hyderabad City. Amid skyrocketing land prices, the Pharma Villages are bound to generate a scare among small and marginal farmers. It remains to be seen how Reddy addresses the issue to strike a balance between farmers’ land rights and his massive industrialization programme.