Farmers’ forum to lay siege to village offices

May 04, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:44 am IST - KALPETTA:

The Haritasena, a farmers’ movement, is preparing to launch indefinite agitations seeking to revoke the recent hike in land tax and stamp duty.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday M. Surendran, district president, and K. Sudhakara Swamy, convener, Haritasena, said the government had increased the land tax to Rs.80 an acre in 2011-12 fiscal. Now, it has been further hiked to Rs.203 an acre with retrospective effect.

The government also hiked the minimum charge of stamp duty from Rs.100 to Rs.500. There was also a similar increase in the charge for mutation (Pokkuvaravu) of land, Mr. Surendran said.

Even while such hikes are announced, the compensation for farmers for their crop loss in natural calamities was cut short considerably last year.

If the farmers got Rs.100 for the loss of a plantain in natural calamities before, as per the new norms set by the government they will get only Rs.3.50 a plant, he said.

Such decisions put the farming community in a fix, Mr. Surendran said, adding the government should reconsider revoking the decisions. The organisation will lay siege to the Kalpetta village office here on Monday and Mananthavadi village office on May 8. If the government failed to revoke its decisions, the organisation will extend similar mode of agitations to other village offices in a week, he added.

They also raised demands such as provision of free power supply for agriculture purposes, increase in compensation for crop loss in natural calamities, and increase in farmer pension.

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