Amaravati/New Delhi, Feb 25 (IANS): Chipping in to save the poor people who encroached upon Railway land in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has written to Union Railway Minister Piyush Goel to impress upon the Railway Board members to accept another parcel of land of equal value in lieu.

"You (Goel) are earnestly requested to impress upon the concerned Railway Board members to take a suitable decision in the matter which would ameliorate the present suffering of hundreds of poor families," said Reddy.

Explaining the history of this crisis, he said that nearly 800 poor families have built houses and have been living on Railway land in Rajarajeswaripeta area within Vijayawada municipal corporation limits for more than 30 years.

Reddy said these families made several representations to the government to regularize their encroachments and alleged that no meaningful effort was made in the past to resolve the issue.

"As the lands encroached upon by the poor families belong to Railways, and keeping in view the long nature of encroachments, it is proposed to offer suitable government land to railways as part of exchange in lieu of this encroached land," offered the chief minister.

He reminded that the Railways have not made any use of this land for more than 30 years, saying that the substitute land identified by the state government is suitable in all respects and located within the city civic body limits.

"More so, the land offered in exchange is of equal value. Both the encroached land and the land proposed for exchange were inspected by a joint team of revenue (department) and railways," said the CM.

According to the chief minister, railway officials have also expressed their opinion to the Krishna district collector that the encroached land is of little use and the Railways would be better off to utilize the proposed land, located adjacent to the existing 25 acres of railway land in Ajith Singh Nagar of Vijayawada.