Activists of Karnataka Pranta Raitha Sangha (KPRS) staged a protest in the city on Friday demanding that both the Union and State governments amend existing laws to confer land ownership rights to small and marginal farmers engaged in cultivation of forest and revenue land for their livelihood.
Addressing the protest meet, S.B. Shivashankar, convener of KPRS district unit, said under Forest Rights Act, 2006, it is mandatory to furnish documents related to domicile in forest land from past 75 years or from three generations to get title deeds over the forest land cultivated by the farmers. As a majority of small and marginal farmers are finding it difficult to furnish these documents, the applications submitted by them under the Act for title deeds have remained pending. He demanded that the Union government relax the conditions for conferring title deeds by amending the Act.
Mr. Shivashankar urged the State government to amend section 94A of Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964, that imposes restrictions on regularisation of bagair hukum cultivation in the limits of urban local bodies. Poor farmers engaged in unauthorised cultivation of forest and revenue land are considered to be land grabbers under the Karnataka Land Grabbing Prevention Act, 2011. He urged the State government to exempt the poor farmers from this Act and confer title deeds over the land cultivated to them.
Loan waiver demanded
The protesters raised slogans demanding the waiving of loans borrowed from nationalised and cooperative banks by the farmers in drought-affected areas. They submitted a memorandum to the office of Deputy Commissioner in this regard.
Functionaries of KPRS K.T. Hanumanthappa, M. Narayan, Prabhakaran, Nanjundappa took part in the protest.
