'Don't take away farmers land for SEZ in K'taka'

Bangalore, June 21: Congress party in Karnataka today demanded the state government not to take away lands from farmers for the purpose of setting up SEZs at Nandagudi in Bangalore Rural district.

Opposition Leader in the Karnataka Assembly Dharam Singh told newspersons here that Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy was 'playing with the plights of the farmers'.

"The Chief Minister recently had convened a meeting of farmers to hear their grievances and made lot of promises to end their woes.

However to the shock of the farming community he had announced the formation of new SEZ near Bangalore at the prevail of farmers who produced large quantity of vegetables and mulberry in this area," he alleged.

Demanding the state government not to acquire the agriculture land forcefully from the farmers he urged the government to hand-over the government land identified for the proposed SEZ to Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) to develop residential layouts.

"The JD(S)-BJP coalition government during its tenure of last 16 months in the state has failed to take measures to solve the crisis on the housing front in Bangalore city," he charged.

Terming the recent farmer's convention held by Chief Minister as the 'meeting of Kumaraswamy fans' Mr Singh said that no fruitful results emerged from it.

Referring the Kalasa-Banduri drinking water project Mr Singh said that the project was planned by the previous Congress state government and the NDA government at the Centre had stayed its execution. BJP was trying to politicise the issue. He was confident that the UPA government would give accord to the project, he added.

UNI