Just days before Holi, festive colors were replaced by clouds of dust in Vinoba Navodaya Colony of Velugumatla village in Khammam, Telangana. As early as February 24, Bulldozers were firedRows of modest homes turned into piles of bricks, tin and splintered wood, while hundreds of families were left staring at the ruins of the lives they had built over decades.
“Our lives have become dark,” says B. Srinivas, 48, who works as a civil servant. Hamali (Porter) In the agricultural market courtyard in Khammam, his voice breaks as he surveys the mound of debris that was once his home. They say the large-scale demolition drive on ‘Bhoodan’ land in Velugumatla has left families like theirs homeless.
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Until recently, the small slum-like settlement, named after Gandhian leader Vinoba Bhave and housing the working poor and daily wage labourers, was busy with the routine of daily life. Today, it lies abandoned, with the occasional scrap dealer scavenging for pieces of iron from the wreckage.
The colony is located about six kilometers from Khammam city and close to the Integrated District Office Complex (New Collectorate) at Velugumatla, along the Khammam-Vyara Highway – the nerve center of the district.
“They (officials) came with dozens of earthmovers and tractor-trolleys, accompanied by a crowd of police personnel,” recalls Srinivas, wiping away tears. “Before we could understand what was happening, bulldozers started demolishing our houses without any notice.”
Srinivas Vinoba is among hundreds of residents displaced by the demolition drive in Navodaya Colony, who are now looking at an uncertain future.
Sources say around 600 structures, both kutcha and pucca, were demolished during the day-long operation, leaving more than 1,800 people homeless.
However, the story of these lands goes back several decades. Inspired by the Bhoodan movement led by Vinoba Bhave in the 1950s, a local landowner named Kalawala Raja Rama Rao donated 62 acres and seven guntas of land in survey numbers 147, 148 and 149 at Velugumatla in 1953.
In April 2014, just before the formation of Telangana, the Andhra Pradesh Bhoodan Board had issued leases of 100 square yards to 1,895 poor beneficiaries in Velugumatla in the then undivided Andhra Pradesh. “I built my house with hard-earned savings and money taken through a gold loan,” says Srinivas, holding an old copy of the proceedings issued on April 23, 2014, by the Andhra Pradesh Bhoodan Board, which had allotted him a plot. Bhoodan land.
Years of hard work and careful savings, he says, vanished within hours when the bulldozers arrived. “Where should we go now? How will I repay the gold loan and marry my daughter who is pursuing post-graduation,” he asks worriedly. HamaliNow living in a government-run temporary shelter at Ambedkar Bhawan in Khammam.
Inside the crowded hall of Ambedkar Bhawan, several other displaced families express a similar sense of uncertainty about the future.
Officials say the demolition drive was carried out to remove unauthorized construction from Bhoodan land. Soon after the operation, district officials announced that 31 acres and seven guntas of Bhoodan land, estimated to be worth over ₹250 crore, were ‘saved’.
The demolition caused an uproar in Khammam, long considered a traditional stronghold of the Left parties. Aggrieved members of displaced families staged protests condemning their eviction and demanding justice.
The issue turned into a widespread political controversy, to which several parties including Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Bharatiya Janata Party and Aam Aadmi Party reacted sharply. The controversy also sparked a war of words between the ruling Congress and the main opposition BRS, with both sides blaming each other over the handling of the ‘Bhoodan land issue’.
A scrap dealer sifts through pieces of iron taken from the wreckage. | Photo Courtesy: Nagara Gopal
A section of Congress leaders alleged that an organization claiming to work for the rural poor has issued fake pattas to landless families. Local leaders of the concerned organization vehemently denied this allegation.
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Over the past few days, leaders of various political parties and mass organizations representing vulnerable sections have visited Khammam to express solidarity with the displaced families.
Opposition leaders criticized the demolition campaign as “ruthless and insensitive” by “bulldozing” the homes of poor families.
CPI (Marxist) leaders alleged that this action violated the basic spirit of the Bhoodan movement. CPI(M) district secretary Nunna Nageswara Rao laments, “Bhoodan land is for the landless and homeless poor. Demolishing houses built by the underprivileged, despite all odds, defeats the basic spirit of the Bhoodan movement.”
The Velugumatala demolition was also criticized by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. In a statement, he said the Telangana government has “tarnished the legacy” of Vinoba Bhave by demolishing houses built and owned by the beneficiaries of the voluntary land donation drive.
The issue also caught the attention of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes. Its member Jatothu Hussain Nayak met displaced families of Vinobanagar in Khammam on 1 March, where the aggrieved residents spoke about the sudden demolition and loss of their homes.
Expressing serious concern over the plight of the displaced families, many of whom belong to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Nayak assured them that justice would be served.
Kunnamneni Sambasiva Rao, state secretary of the Communist Party of India and MLA from Kothagudem, questioned the veracity of the “brutal” operation. “Arbitrarily demolishing their houses without issuing notices is inhumane,” he had said while meeting displaced families in Khammam. He had said the authorities should have conducted a house-to-house survey to identify ineligible beneficiaries, if any.
He had said, “The manner in which the poor were literally dragged onto the streets, causing panic among children, women and the elderly, is most condemnable.”
Sambasiva Rao said that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy had earlier said in the state assembly that pattas would be issued to poor people living on Bhoodan lands across the state. Khammam district ministers should take initiative to ensure justice for the displaced families, he said.
Leaders of other parties also criticized. BJP state president N. Ramachander Rao visited Velugumatla and accused the ruling Congress government of targeting houses of the poor across the state and carrying out demolitions, bypassing legal processes for real estate interests.
BRS working president K.T.Rama Rao also drew sharp criticism, accusing the Congress government in Telangana of spreading “anarchy” by destroying the roof over the heads of the poor. He promised that his party would help the displaced residents explore legal options to get justice.
Some displaced residents in a temporary shelter set up at Ambedkar Bhawan in Khammam. | Photo Courtesy: Nagara Gopal
Khammam District Collector Anudeep Durishetty has said that the demolition drive on Bhoodan land was carried out after due process of law. According to the district administration, the encroached Bhoodan land was taken back by the government as per the orders of the Chief Land Administration Commissioner and the High Court, thereby protecting the valuable public land. “Joint investigation revealed fake documents and illegal allotment of Bhoodan land in Velugumatala. Criminal cases have been registered against several persons in this regard and further action is underway as per law,” he said.
Minister’s words vs residents’ fear
Stating that a detailed socio-economic survey is underway in Velugumatla, Revenue and Housing Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy said all eligible families of those who have lost their houses will be provided house-site leases and houses under the Indiramma Housing Scheme in their native places: “Measures will be taken to ensure house-site leases to them by March 15.”
But for many displaced families living in temporary shelters set up at Ambedkar Bhawan and TTDC in Khammam, such assurances have done little to ease the uncertainty of the present. Some allege that the demolition campaign was part of a larger plan. Referring to the rapid growth of the area as a well-connected residential area on the outskirts of the city, a displaced resident claims, “Some wrong realtors with political clout have been conspiring for a long time to woo us away from Vinoba Colony to expand their real estate business in Velugumatla.”
The timing of the removal just before the examination session has also drawn criticism from many quarters. “How can they bulldoze our houses without thinking about its impact on our children preparing for the SSC exam,” asks Punem Kondal Rao, a 40-year-old tribal resident who works as a watchman in the city.
He says some schoolbooks of his elder daughter, a Class 10 student at the Zilla Parishad High School in V. Venkatayapalem, were lost in the chaos.
He has been living in the colony with his four-member family since 2014. Initially, they lived in a temporary structure before building a permanent house by pooling their savings and borrowing money from a self-help group.
They argue that following the court’s status quo order, nine houses in the colony were saved from demolition. He explains, “The orders apply to the entire survey population. If that is so, then the demolition drive itself was unjustified.”
Another displaced resident says that some residences in Vinoba Colony were also allotted house numbers: “We were living here for many years even before the inauguration of the new collectorate in 2023.”
According to him, the sharp rise in land values around the new collectorate located near the Khammam-Vyra Highway had attracted the attention of realtors on Bhoodan land in the area. “Some politically connected vested elements are trying to grab these lands,” he alleged, requesting anonymity. They also demand that the government release a white paper on the status of the entire Bhoodan land of more than 60 acres in Velugumatala.
As the dust settles on the landed colony, displaced families say they are preparing for a long struggle, supported by the growing solidarity of political parties, activists and civil society groups. Their demand is clear: reconstruction of their houses at the same location and compensation for the demolished houses.
For many, the loss is not just of property but of the delicate security built up over years of hard work and meager earnings. Dhanamma, a 55-year-old domestic help, remembers watching helplessly as her house was razed to the ground. “I built it brick by brick five years ago, spending my entire life’s savings. It was demolished before my eyes,” she says, crying.
She says taking them away from Bhoodan land defeats the purpose for which large landowners had voluntarily donated land for the poor and needy under the historic Bhoodan movement. Now living in a cramped temporary shelter with her family, she says renting a house is beyond their means. But despite the uncertainty and difficulty, she perseveres. Dhanamma says firmly, “Whatever happens, we will not leave Velugumatala.”
