T.V. Hegde, president of the district unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Wednesday that the State government should take immediate steps to allot ‘kumki land’ belonging to the Revenue Department to farmers in Udupi district.
Kumki land refers to the plots situated adjacent to agricultural land. Kumki land is used for cattle grazing. The shrubs grown on kumki land is used as natural fertiliser in the fields.
Addressing presspersons here on Wednesday, Mr. Hegde said that according to the information available to him, nearly 10,000 small farmers would receive notices to vacate these kumki plots on which they were conducting agricultural operations.
This problem had arisen because of an affidavit filed by the State government in the High Court assuring that the former would clear encroachment on kumki lands. As many as 40 farmers in Karkala taluk had even received notices from the taluk office asking them to vacate the land in 15 days. This move would hit the small farmers hard, he said.
When the BJP government was in power in the State, it had decided in principle to allot kumki land to farmers. However the measure could not be taken further because of the declaration of Assembly elections in 2013.
The Congress government should take this move further and allot the kumki plots to the farmers, Mr. Hegde said. If there was no positive step from the State Government in this direction, the BJP would organise all the 10,000 farmers and launch an agitation in the district, he said.
