AP border eats up Karnataka village

tumkur: at kentharlahatti village in sira taluk bordering andhra pradesh, revenue officers of the neighbouring state have formed a 400-foot-long trench along the village to mark the state border. as a result, two houses, a borewell, 14 sites allotted by the taluk panchayat and a maternity centre "belong" to andhra pradesh now. the village belongs to madalur grama panchayat in tumkur's sira taluk.after a november misadventure by andhra pradesh, officers of the land records, madhugiri, visited the spot on november 16 and submitted a report three days later. the report has not been made public. reports reaching the district headquarters said the andhra pradesh revenue officers have been working on the trench for the last three days, which has not been noticed by the district revenue officers who have discontinued the practice of getting daily reports from visiting revenue officers. the sira tahsildar reportedly visited the spot on monday following complaints by farmers and sent a report to the government through the deputy commissioner. it is said raghuveera reddy, congress mla from madakasira, reportedly encouraged farmers in the border village of honnagondanahally in sira taluk to dig a trench to divert the natural flow of water to their side and prevent it from entering karnataka. since karnataka government's action was anything but visible, the mla repeated the same folly near reddihalli in madhugiri taluk which snowballed into an inter-state row forcing the intervention of the supreme court. later, the work had to be stopped. despite this setback, the mla allegedly provoked the farmers to take up work at night to dig a series of trenches along the border near honnagondanahally. farmers then alleged that the congress government in karnataka was helping the mla as he belonged to the same party to bolster his image. as if to substantiate this, the congress in sira organised a press conference where reddy defended his action to "safeguard the interests of farmers in that part of andhra pradesh". later at a public meeting, he apologised for his "mistakes".