The Hindu : Karnataka News : Congress to fight land acquisition near Bangalore

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007
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Karnataka

Congress to fight land acquisition near Bangalore

Special Correspondent

Party leaders address rally at Nandagudi
Urge farmers not to part with their land

Bangalore: The Congress has decided to put up stiff resistance to prevent large-scale acquisition of land in and around Bangalore. According to the party, the Government is out to acquire 60,000 acres, including 13,000 acres for the Special Economic Zone at Nandagudi, which recently received the approval of the Union Government.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president M. Mallikarjun Kharge, who participated in a rally organised by the party at Nandagudi, near Bangalore, on Tuesday, said the Congress would expose the designs of some key people in the Government who were out to dispossess small and marginal farmers of their land. Most of the farmers, who had inherited their land, were being compelled to part with the land for a song, he alleged.

The charge of the Congress party against the Government is that some important leaders have set some goons in various pockets to acquire the lands from the farmers by offering a fancy price which is far in excess of the guidance value fixed by the Government. According to the Congress, while the average price of land as per the guidance value fixed by the Government is around Rs. 2 lakh an acre, farmers of Hoskote, Kanakapura, Ramanagaram and Magadi were being offered up to Rs. 10 lakh in ‘farmer to farmer’ transactions. Agents of some political leaders are offering farmers up to Rs. 20 lakh an acre as ‘advance’. The agents are likely to get up to Rs. 50 lakh an acre from promoters of SEZs or private sector companies that have come forward to develop satellite townships.

Asked whether he would take up the matter with the Centre, which has approved the Nandagudi SEZ, Mr. Kharge said he would do so, if required. “The State Government recommended the proposal to the Centre, and the latter cleared it after ensuring that the proposal was as per the rules. The fact is that the Government said that barren land was being allotted for the SEZ, which is not the truth. The land to be acquired in Hoskote, Ramanagaram and Kanakapura is prime agricultural land.

The KPCC president said the Congress was not against the Government acquiring small tracts of land for industrial development. However, fertile land should not be acquired from farmers.

Apart from Mr. Kharge, the rally was addressed by senior party leaders N. Dharam Singh, Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar, local legislators Krishna Byre Gowda, Sudhakar Reddy and M.T.B. Nagaraj and Lohit D. Naikar, member of the KPCC’s fact-finding committee on land acquisition. They urged farmers not to sell their land no matter what the price offered.

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