CPM candidate rakes up BU land compensation issue

Coimbatore: CPM candidate for Coimbatore parliament constituency P R Natarajan has raked up the issue of compensation that the Bharathiar University has to provide to farmers from whom it had acquired a total of 994 acres land way back in 1982.
About 1,200 farmers from Bommanampalayam, Kalveerampalayam, Navavoor and surrounding areas had given their land to set up the varsity and the state had then fixed a compensation of Rs 4,000 per acre. Farmers, however, moved a sub-court in the district seeking higher compensation and the court in 2007 directed the state to pay them a hiked compensation along with interest. When the state failed to implement the court order, a section of the farmers, backed by the CPM, had staged a sit-in at the university in 2012.

Following this, the state deposited Rs 42 crore, a portion of the compensation amount, around 2014. Farmers said they were yet to be fully paid the compensation amount. “The compensation has been pending for so long that some of the land owners have passed away, while others are aged and can’t fight for it anymore,” said N Kandasamy, 47, whose family had given away their 11 acres land for the university.

A university official, meanwhile, said they were not in a financial position to pay the amount demanded by farmers and that they have appealed against it. The official said the university would act on the issue based on further (court) orders.

Amid this, Natarajan, who led the farmers’ protest at the university in 2012, has promised the farmers that he would do everything possible to help them get the full compensation amount, if he was elected.