Bengaluru: Farmers on other stretches of BBC project hold out, impasse continues

Of the total 2410 acres of land required for the Bengaluru Business Corridor (BBC) project, Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has till date acquired a mere 308 acres, achieving 12.7% progress, all of it along the Tumakuru Road – Ballari Road stretch.

However, landowners in other stretches of the project have rejected the five-option compensation package offered by the BDA and are still holding out, and the impasse continues   even as Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister D.K. Shivakumar recently announced that the project will be completed in a year and a half.

Farmer leader Kodihalli Chandrashekhar said that the five-option package was unfair to farmers. They were ready to give up their lands only if offered cash compensation under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. “The farmers were not consulted before offering this five-option package. This is undemocratic. We demand that the government discuss with the farmers and arrive at a mutually accepted compensation package,” he said.

Five options for compensation

BDA has announced a five-option compensation package, which includes cash compensation, the price for which has been fixed village-wise, equivalent residential plots in Dr. K. Shivaram Karanth Layout or other layouts coming up along PRR, equivalent commercial sites in a 65:35 ratio along PRR, and Transferable Development Rights (TDR) at the residential site value or FAR on their adjoining remaining land along PRR.

Suresh, a farmer who would lose 2 acres of his land in Gattahalli, said the BDA was acquiring more land than was required for the road and giving back a portion of the land as “developed land”. “This is a scam. Let the BDA acquire only what is required for the road by paying compensation as per the 2013 law and return the rest of the land to us,” he said.

What is market value?

Sources in BDA claimed they were offering compensation as per the 2013 law, but their interpretation is where the farmers and they differed. “The 2013 law prescribes three times the market value in rural areas and two times the market value in urban areas as compensation. But how to decide the market value is the question. Farmers flaunt random sale deeds with astronomical prices, but we cannot go by that,” a senior official said.

Guidance value suppressed

However, farmers said this argument was misleading. While pointing out that the guidance value was not the market value of the land, they said the guidance value of their lands was artificially suppressed to deny them fair compensation. Based on a 2023 letter from BDA, the Department of Stamps and Registrations reverted the guidance value of lands notified for PRR to 2016 levels. “This is illegal and was only done to deny us fair compensation. Now BDA claims to give compensation three times this artificially suppressed guidance value, which is unacceptable,” said another land loser Jagadish Reddy, in Varthur. 

Mr. Reddy suggested that the BDA instead opt for a land pooling method, notify an impact zone of around 500 m, and reconstitute all land holdings. In this method, all land owners will get back 80% of their lands, and BDA does not need to spend any money on acquisition.

However, a senior official said that there was a trust deficit between farmers and BDA over the project, and land pooling will not work in such an environment. He said that land pooling would mean notifying another 5000 acres, convincing all land owners of those lands and the project would be inordinately delayed. 

Instead, L. K. Atheeq, chairman, Bengaluru Business Corridor Ltd., said, “We are constantly in touch with landowners and farmer organisations who are speaking to us about compensation. We think the TDR is very generous as we are giving it at the developed site value, even for agricultural land. Farmers need assurance that TDRs will be issued in a hassle-free process and that there is a transparent digital exchange. We are assuring farmers that we will make TDR issue a smooth process”.