Farmers protest delay in payment of compensation

They parted with their land for NH-75 ten years ago

The activists of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha and Hasiru Sene took out a huge protest rally in the town on Saturday condemning the delay in paying compensation to farmers who have lost their land for Bengaluru-Chennai highway.

The farmers began their rally, driving tractors, from Kendatti Gate and reached the deputy commissioner’s office through the National Highway. They said that it had been 10 years since the land had been acquired and the farmers were yet to get compensation. They raised slogans against the government and the private company which executed the work on the highway.

“National Highway 75 was laid in 2006 for which hundreds of farmers parted with their land. But they had not been paid compensation since then and those who lost their land are running from pillar to post to get compensation,” Raitha Sangha and Hasiru Sene vice president K Narayana Gowda said.

He said that at the time of land acquisition, the district administration and the National Highways Authority of India and the district administration had promised to pay compensation at the earliest. But the promise is yet to be fulfilled. Repeated complaints to the deputy commissioner in this regard have not yielded any result. Around 370 farmers who parted with their land for the National Highway are now in dire straits.

The previous deputy commissioner D K Ravi had ordered the NHAI to pay interest at 8% for the delay in paying compensation. But, the present DC has not been showing any interest in the matter, he claimed.

The NHAI has filed a petition before the deputy commissioner’s court seeking review of Ravi’s order. “The elected representatives too are not coming to the rescue of farmers. We have come to the streets by parting with our land for the National Highway,” Byregowda, a farmer from Kendatti said.

He said that Lanco, the company which executed the highway project, had done an “unscientific” work as a result of which movement of people has been affected. Service roads and underpasses have not been constructed to facilitate the movement of local people.

The protesters said that they would dig up the highway and start cultivation on the road if they were not paid compensation at the earliest.

Deputy Commissioner Dr K V Trilok Chandra, who received a memorandum from the protesters, said that he would speak with the officials of the National Highways Authority of India and resolve the issue in a week.

Raitha Sangha and Hasiru Sene district convener K Srinivasa Gowda, Hasiru Sene district unit president Harikumar and others took part in the protest.