Farmers without their piece of land

BANGALORE: Their lands were notified for acquisition five years ago for BDA's Arkavathy Layout. The once-lush fields and farms were bulldozed and so was the livelihood of nearly 15,000 farmers. Now, the farmers may have to face another blow.
This month-end, their Yeshasvini health insurance cover will end. This means they cannot get free medical facilities anymore.Reason: they'll no longer be farmers as their `paani' (land document) has ceased to exist.
Till 2003, these farmers were landlords in the irrigated belt of 16 villages. With the acquisition, they don't hold agriculture land and hence cannot be members of the farmers co-operative society which is a pre-requisite for the health insurance scheme.
Come May 31, their insurance coverage will expire. "I have to undergo an eye surgery. I have asked the doctor to do it before the month-end. From June, we will not get medical benefits. It was such a wonderful scheme. By paying just Rs 120 per head per year, our medical needs were taken care of,'' says S Nagaraj, a farmer from Jakkur who has lost his farm land to the layout.
After the final acquisition notification was issued, the BDA started layout development work and bulldozed the entire place, destroying farms and fields. It is five years since the farmers have lost their livelihood.
The once-rich landlords' wives who would look after the labourers and the cattle, are now forced to do menial jobs. "One blessing in disguise is that there are many apartments around the villages. Our women do household chores, eat leftovers. It's very painful,'' says Patalappa.
The plight of Appaiahanna is pathetic. He owned 12 guntas where he grew jasmine and reared a cow. His family, wife and two children, led a contented life by selling flowers and milk. Today, he has no land and goes for construction work at an apartment site. He pulled out his children from school unable to support their education and they are doing bar-bending work at the site.
Arkavathy Layout has seen four chief ministers promising the moon. They instead denotified lands of the rich and influential. The `pro-farmer' JD(S) government too did not come to their rescue. In fact, it denotified 70 acres during the last days of the coalition government.
"If you can pay the people in power, then the lands will be denotified. We cannot pay anyone and are the victims. Even those who have claimed compensation had to grease the palms of officials to get their cheques. Even if we accept the compensation, where do we go? We know nothing apart from agriculture,'' says Muniraju, another farmer.
After a lull, the layout was again in news last week when the Metropolitan Housing Society members stepped into Amruthahalli to perform bhumi pooja to begin the layout development work. With the work in limbo __ the issue is in Supreme Court __ thousands of farmers' families have been left in the lurch. Unhappy with the low compensation, many have not claimed the money from BDA and have appealed to the court to quash the notification. The compensation has been fixed ranging from Rs 11 lakh per acre to Rs 20 lakh per acre, while the market value was anywhere between Rs 2 crore and Rs 2.5 crore per acre at the time of notification.