The Supreme Court appointed High Powered Empowered Committee members are said to be impatient over inadequate responses from senior Telangana officials on University of Hyderabad (UoH) land row.
“You are a senior IAS officer. Don’t you know about the laws? You are not giving a correct answer to anything. Are you illiterate? Haven’t you studied?”, they reportedly expressed their anger towards an IAS officer during their state visit.
The committee members, who had raised various issues regarding the UoH lands, asked an IAS officer for details. When the IAS officer did not answer them, they reportedly said, “It is not right for officials to act like this. If they remain silent like this, they will have to assume that something has happened.”
It is reported that the officers working as collectors were asked to be responsible and wondered what was the problem in providing the information sought by the Supreme Court? It is reported that it was made clear that the information provided by the officials is incomplete, and if this is the case, action will have to be taken against the officials themselves.
The committee members asked the TGIIC officials and forest department officials about how many acres of trees were removed during the inquiry regarding the plant count. TGIIC officials replied that they have undertaken land clearing work in a total of 49 hectares. They also said that 100 acres of land have been put up for sale.
Responding to this, the committee questioned why only 100 acres have been put up for sale when there are 400 acres of land? The officials said that they have conducted a market assessment and have put it up for sale considering the demand.
Responding to this, the committee said that they are doing work in 49 hectares, meaning that if it exceeds 50 hectares, an ‘Environmental Impact Assessment’ (EIA) will have to be done, and to avoid it, they have started work in 49 acres first?
It seems that the government and the officials thought that an EIA would definitely be required to work on 400 acres at once. It is learnt that the government has commented that it seems that the government has first cut down trees in 100 acres to avoid the EIA. Forest Department officials and TGIIC officials admitted before the committee that some trees were cut down in the hundred acres of land near the HCU campus.
However, the officials explained to the committee that all of them were ordinary, small weeds, and there were also some subabul trees, and in total there were 125 trees of different species. It is learnt that the committee asked for details and photos of the 125 trees that the officials said were cut down. However, the officials did not have that information.