Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)
Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje  

Mangalore, Mar 18: A seminar on 'Problems of Lands in Dakshina Kannada District' was organized here on Monday March 17 jointly by the Karnataka Pranthya Raitha Sangha (KPRS) and state NGOs to discuss the impact of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) on the farming community, land acquisition in the district and steps to be undertaken to resolve the issue.

Speaking on the occasion KPRS state president Maruti Manpade alleged that the government was unfairly grabbing land from farmers and passing it to large industrialists in the private sector. On their part the farmers were willing to sell their lands for the construction of the SEZ due to various socio-economic factors, he opined. 

According to him farmers were selling land not because they were in favour of SEZ or because their farms were infertile, but because farming had been rendered unprofitable and unviable. In this context, offering a suggestion he declared, 'If reforms in farm credit and price stabilisation policies are implemented, no farmer would want to dispose his land.'

B Madhava, district secretary of the CPI (M) said that his party and Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU, of which he is the current president)  was opposed to the SEZ Act of 2005. It is an alien concept to Indian culture, he added. He urged for major amendments to the Act and said that in its present form, it had the potential to be misused by  real estate developers and the land mafia. Moreover according to him the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 was obsolete and needs urgent upgradation and added that his party was going to press for an amendment to the Act.

Delivering a paper on land reforms, prof Chandrashekar Damle, a prominent agriculturist from the Sullia-based Nehru Memorial College said that 48% of farmers in the state were embroiled in debts, with around 70% of them frustrated. He was quoting figures from the National Sample Survey Data (NSSD) of 2000.

Damle suggested that instead of changing the land use pattern, greater farm expenditure and increased attempts from the government to boost capital formation in the farm sector could be better solutions. Further he opined that land could be divested from large holders and its ownership decentralised.

M H Krishnappa a farmers' leader and pioneer who took an active part during land reforms in the state was felicitated at the function. Also present on the occasion were Sangha state principal secretary J C Bayyareddy, district principal secretary Yadav Shetty, farmers' leader K R Shriyan and others.