The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Farmers pressured to cede land

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Wednesday, Nov 05, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Farmers pressured to cede land

Staff Reporter

Bangalore: The Karnataka Youth Farmers’ Development Organisation has alleged that the Dodaballapur Tahsildar has illegally demolished huts belonging 19 families of farmers who had been cultivating government gomaal land at Thimmasandra for the last 30 years.

General secretary Jagadish Chandra Urs alleged on Tuesday that the tahasildar and the police tried to destroy the standing crops to pressure them to hand over about 50 acres of land which the Government wanted to hand over to the Navy.

The organisation and farmers claimed that the Government granted about 50 acres of land in dispute to the naval authorities in 1986, along with remaining 100 acres of neighbouring land, without even ascertaining the records.

They claimed that their names along with the extent of gomaal land being cultivated by them unauthorisedly are indicated in the Records of Rights, Tenancy and Crops (RTC) since 1979 and land was granted to the naval authorities without their knowledge.

Mr. Urs pointed out that although land was allotted to the naval authorities in 1986, their names were entered in the RTC only in 1992 as they did not make payment to the Government till then. Farmers have made futile efforts moving from pillar to post despite orders from the court to consider their applications for regularisation of the land in their favour.

The farmers claimed that recommendations were made either to allot alternative land to the Naval authorities or to farmers by the then tahasildar and deputy commissioner of Bangalore rural district have been ignored by the present tahasildar.

Pointing out that families of farmers were left shelterless after their huts were demolished on October 30 which were built many years ago, they alleged that the present tahasildar of Doddballapur sub-division had misconstrued a recent order of the High Court which had only asked farmers to approach the appellate authorities to question the grant of land in favour of the naval authorities. They claimed that the court neither upheld grant of land to the naval authorities nor asked the Government to evict them.

They demanded an inquiry on the “illegal” actions of the tahasildar.

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Karnataka