Coffee growers want Karnataka to fix lease rentals for revenue land under cultivation

Growers’ associations have insisted that growers under SC and ST categories be given a 50% discount on lease rental charges

Workers in a coffee estate in Belur taluk of Hassan district in Karnataka. | Photo Credit: Prakash Hassan

Representatives of coffee organisations met Revenue Minister R. Ashok, after the State government passed an amendment to the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964, to facilitate leasing of government land to coffee growers.

A delegation comprising Mahesh Shashidhar, Chairman, Karnataka Planters’ Association (KPA), Jeffry Rebello, president, United Planters’ Association of Southern India (UPASI), and Mohan Kumar, president, Karnataka Growers’ Federation met the Revenue Minister seeking that the government fix lease rentals in the range of ₹1,000 (1 to 5 acre holdings) to ₹3,000 (20 to 25 acre holdings) per acre for the government land on which some growers have taken up unauthorised cultivation.

Multiple demands before govt

Growers’ associations have insisted that growers under SC and ST categories be given a 50% discount on lease rental charges.

They also want that growers be allowed to avail of loans on the basis of the unauthorised cultivation on such land, or cultivation on land leased by the government, from nationalised banks, commercial and co-operative banks.

They want the government to give lease-holders the permission to transfer such leased revenue land to their legal heirs after his/her demise. They also asked for a time of three months, from the date of gazette notification of rules, to submit applications for leasing revenue land in case of unauthorised cultivation.

They thanked the government and Revenue Minister R. Ashok for solving the vexed land issue faced by coffee growers for several decades.