Farmers lay siege to BDA office, demand money for land taken for Peripheral Ring Road

Around 200 farmers laid siege to the Bengaluru Development Authority head office on Monday, demanding that the BDA pay the market price for their land being acquired for the peripheral ring road project.

The 64-km stretch of the road connects Madanayakanahalli in Nelamangala taluk with Chandrapura village on Hosur Road via airport road and Hoskote. When completed, it is expected to divert highway traffic from the existing ring roads. The BDA has notified 1,810 acres belonging to 1,280 farmers for the project.

According to the farmers, the BDA has offered to pay 20% to 30% more than the sub-registrar value for the land, but farmers said it was far less than the estimated market value of the land. As long as the impasse continues, the farmers are neither able to take a loan on the land nor utilise it for any construction.

“We are not against development, give us a fair price or relieve our lands by issuing a no-objection certificate,” demanded Kodihalli Chandrashekar, president of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha and Hasiru Sene.

He said if BDA does not act “lawfully”, they will file a petition in the high court and if the government doesn’t intervene, they will remove the marking stones that the BDA has erected on their lands and dump them in front of the BDA office.

Shivaraju P, deputy commissioner for land acquisition at BDA, said, “We can only pay the farmers according to the Land Acquisition Bill, but they are asking to be paid the market price which is higher. We will bring this to the government’s attention.” He was not available for further comments.

Later, a delegation of the protesting farmers met the chief minister. “We did not get enough time to explain our problems. He did not seem to be interested in resolving the issue. Our protest will continue,” Chandrashekar said.