Addressing the meet of farmers and leaders convened at Pravasi Mandir, he said that farmers have requested to provide compensation per acre will vary from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh depending on the category of land.
Farmers and leaders demanded the DC to provide compensation first and immediately stop the work. Responding to the same, Channappa Gowda said that they have convened the meeting according to the rule of the Government to get to know the opinion of the farmers so that compensation can be fixed.
“To stop the project, you may stage a protest at the Government level. My duty is to implement the orders of the Government. The deliberations of the meeting will be submitted to the Government on April 12,” the DC said.
Meanwhile, responding to various query of the farmers, Bhadra Upper Canal Project Chief Engineer said that the works are being implemented after the Government gave an in-principle approval. Technical Committee too has approved the same. Since 4/1 notice has been issued to the farmers, the works can be implemented. Hence no works being taken up are illegal.
Former MLA B R Neelakantappa said that the project is not being implemented according to the rules. The report submitted by the Project Engineer to the Deputy Commissioner and the report submitted by the DC to the Government must be made public.
Murlidhar, a farmer from Lakkavalli said that since the project is of the Government they are not in a position to fight it out. Hence, he requested the Government to provide them good compensation.
Many leaders said that they are not opposing the project but they are opposing illegal implementation of the project.
MLA D S Suresh, Assistant Commissioner Shashidhar Kurera, Project Executive Engineer Randurang, Project Assistant Executive Engineer Mahishak Reddy, Tahshildar Renuka Prasad among others were present.
DH News Service