Aircraft break through the thick monsoon clouds, fly past a 40-f00t high mound of excavated mud, before touching down at Kempegowda International Airport that abuts Bettakote village. Persistent wind over the flatland whips up the mound, and soon a haze of dust descends on farmlands of the village.
“On bad days, you can’t even see the person standing a few feet away from you,” says T.V. Shivakumar, who manages three acres of mulberry cultivation with his brother near the airport. He points to the coating of dust on the mulberry trees and the crops being grown in his land. “Silkworms don’t produce silk when they eat this leaf while our cows have been giving lesser milk. How can we pursue agriculture in this dust bowl?”
It has been three years since a bevy of trucks and heavy earth machines started excavating mud in the process of constructing Terminal II and a second runway at the airport. With the monsoon wind comes the dust storm.
“Farmers from 10 villages around the airport have complaints. Bettakote is the worst hit, as it is right next to the airport. Of the 224 households in the village, at least 190 have been directly affected,” said an official at Bettakote Gram Panchayat.
Last week, things came to a head with over 200 farmers squatting in front of the gram panchayat office. On Tuesday, officials from KIAL, Bettakote GP and farmers discussed and agreed upon a slew of mitigation measures. A report on crop loss is expected to be completed within a fortnight.
Farm losses
This monsoon season has aggravated the losses of farmers. Sericulture yields income six times a year based on the mulberry crop maturing every two months.
“But dust enters our land, our homes, and the sheds where we rear silkworms. For half the year, we haven’t gotten any yield,” said Shivananda, a farmer.
A month ago, Munikrishna spent ₹10,000 on silkworms for his 1.5 acre farm. Eventually, he got produce worth just ₹7,000. “I have loans totalling more than ₹8 lakh. I’ve even told my son to defer his engineering education for a year because I can’t afford to take another loan,” he said.
He has become the de facto leader of this agitation. In 2012, he faced a criminal case after leading a protest against the airport contractors for allegedly disposing sewage close to farm land. Dropping of the case was one of the conditions put before airport authorities during the recent meeting.
He sees little hope in the latest rounds of meetings. “It is impossible to prevent dust from blowing over into villages. Either they have to buy our lands or compensate us each time we face a crop loss and not just when we protest,” he said.
Jagadeesh, a sericulture department official entrusted with the crop-loss survey, estimates that sericulturists in the village have suffered a total loss this time around.
Mitigation
A spokesperson for BIAL said they are aware of the issues faced by farmers and are ‘working’ with the community to resolve them. “In an infrastructure project of this magnitude, there is bound to be some problem. Winds are whipping up dust this season owing to the large open spaces in the airport complex,” said the spokesperson.
BIAL said the under-construction runway is covered with with concrete/bitumen while all roads near the site are being watered. Mounting rain guns and mist cannons on tankers, lowering speed of construction-related vehicles, and grassing of all slopes are some of the measures being undertaken to reduce dust, said airport authorities in a statement.
