They made this complaint to him during his visit to several villages of hobli such as Agani, Acchanahalli, Bilisare, Devalakere and other villages, on Sunday.
The villagers said that wild elephants are destroying standing crops such as coffee, banana, coconut, and pepper. Even man-animal conflict has increased from the last few years and elephants have trampled many people to death. Besides, the agricultural and plantation labourers are not ready to work in coffee plantation and in agriculture fields out of fear. This has caused huge loss to farmers and planters in the region.
They pointed out disturbance in the forests such as increased human activities, setting up of hydel projects and cutting trees for construction of dams for hydel projects are making wild animals raid villages in search of food and water.
They came down heavily on officials of concerned department for their failure to put an end to this menace despite submitting memoranda and holding demonstrations in front of the deputy commissioner’s office. Even the people’s representatives have turned deaf ears to these problems. They demanded Kumaraswamy to fight for increase in compensation for farmers by discussing it at the government level.
Responding to their problems, Kumaraswamy said that steps are being taken by Zilla Panchayat to put solar fence where there is movement of wild jumbos, under the Union Government’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS). This work will be taken up soon. Farmers and coffee planters are free to put up the solar fence under this scheme. He also promised that the issue of increase in compensation will be discussed with the government.