BELAGAVI: “India was once identified as a country of farmers. That has changed big time. In the current scenario, it is difficult for farmers here to even survive,” rue farmers who have lost their fertile lands in the ongoing Halaga-Macche bypass project initiated by National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). Though an alternate route was available to make as the bypass, NHAI deliberately targeted us, they complain.
Several farmers are now running from pillar to post to save their land from getting acquired by NHAI, as agriculture is the only source of income for their survival. Farmers of the area are poor with none of them owning more than one acre in this belt.
This is not the first time the government has targeted farmers, they allege; last year too, farmers of Halaga village in Belagavi taluk resorted to a dharna, protesting against acquisition of their fertile land for a sewage treatment plant, in front of the deputy commissioner’s office. Putting up the protest under the Agriculture Land Protection and Development Samiti (ALPDS) banner, the farmers say they had already given a big portion of their fertile land for Suvarna Vidhan Soudha in Halaga.