The Hassan Urban Development Authority, on Thursday, allotted sites in S.M. Krishna Layout, despite protest by farmers who gave up their land for the layout. The farmers protested demanding higher compensation.As the site allotment process through e-lottery was under way at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Bhavan, the farmers protested demanding higher compensation. They even attempted to stop Minister for Sericulture and Animal Husbandry A. Manju.
HUDA had decided to compensate land losers with developed land. Both, the authority and farmers had agreed to share developed land in the ratio of 60:40. The authority conducted the allotment based on this ratio. However, the farmers demanded compensation 50:50 as per the State government’s recent policy.
The process began with allotting sites to farmers who gave up land for the layout spread over 453 acres. The farmers got 9,500 sq ft of developed land against an acre they gave up. Mr. Manju said the farmers had got developed land worth over ₹95 lakh per acre they gave up. “Of the total land, 48% had been earmarked for residential purposes, and the remaining for public utilities. As many as 2,645 sites were allotted to farmers and 2,700 sites to those applied for sites,” he said. There were 9,223 applications for the sites.
HUDA proposed this layout when S.M. Krishna was the Chief Minister. However, it took more than 15 years to reach this stage, owing to legal battles. Farmers had moved the court opposing the compensation they were offered. Later, with the court’s intervention, the HUDA agreed to provide developed land as compensation.
HUDA chairman Krishna Kumar, in charge Deputy Commissioner R. Venkatesh Kumar and others were present.
