BENGALURU: Landowners and farmers affected by the Bengaluru Business Corridor (BBC) have accused the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and the state government of adopting unfair practices in fixing compensation for acquired land. They said the Deputy Chief Minister’s claim of offering “the best compensation in India” is misleading.
The PRR Raitha Haagu Niveshanadarara Sangha (Farmers and Site owners association) said recent claims by the Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar that the government is offering “the best compensation in India” are “far from the truth” and only add to the distress of landholders who have been battling the project for more than two decades.
According to the organisation, a government order issued on September 24, 2024, mandates the use of guidance values (GV) for negotiated settlement. However, they allege that these GVs were deliberately kept low. The associations claimed that BDA wrote illegal letters to the Stamps and Registration Department in 2016, requesting a halt to the scheduled revision of guideline values. As a result, the values of PRR-acquired lands reportedly dropped by over 60 percent. “The compensation now being offered is based on this artificially depressed value,” they said, calling the government’s claim of ‘best compensation’ “baseless and misleading”.
The groups have urged citizens and the media to independently compare actual market prices with the compensation being offered.
The farmers further pointed to a Supreme Court order dated December 12, 2023, which transferred all PRR-related cases to the High Court of Karnataka. The apex court instructed the High Court to adjudicate the matters strictly in accordance with law and on merits. Farmer leaders said this direction supersedes earlier interpretations allegedly used by BDA to harass farmers during the land acquisition process.