Bengaluru farmers file mass objections to Peripheral Ring Road land acquisition

Bengaluru: In what could be seen as a collective show of strength, hundreds of land owners submitted formal objections to the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), refusing to accept any of the five compensation options offered for land acquisition under the Peripheral Ring Road (PRR), now rebranded as the Bengaluru Business Corridor (BBC).

The development takes place at a time when the authority had started issuing awards for taking custody of the land in a bid to start the construction of the road work pending for two decades.

The farmers argued that the project’s land acquisition process has become legally untenable, claiming the scheme has already lapsed under Section 27 of the BDA Act, as no awards were passed within five years of its finalisation in 2007.

The latest attempts to push the project forward are “arbitrary, unconstitutional, and in violation of Article 300A", which protects the right to property, the farmers said as they filed en mass objections at the BDA head office in the city.

While farmers reiterated that they are not opposed to the construction of the road, they stressed that they are compelled to fight for fair compensation granted under the 2013 Land Acquisition Act, which the state government has not applied in this case.

In their objections, landowners rejected all five options — cash compensation, transferrable development rights, floor area ratio, developed residential plots, and developed commercial plots — calling them unjust, impractical, or discriminatory. They noted that cash compensation is pegged based on the 2016 guidance value, which is far below current market rates, while other alternatives either lack legal clarity, offer inadequate land, or create long waiting periods with no guarantee of allotment.

Senior BDA officers, however, insist that the project will help at least 70% of the land owners as they continue to retain some portion of their property even after the road is built. They acknowledge that the land acquisition may not be attractive only for people who own less than 20 guntas of land as these land owners can only opt for cash compensation.