A section of farmers staged a black flag protest at Kandiyur on Thursday against the reported move to acquire farm lands for laying a bypass road at Thiruvariyaru on the Perambalur-Manamadurai national highway.
The farmers, led by P. Sukumaran, district vice president, Cauvery Farmers Protection Association, got into agricultural fields and staged a demonstration.
The farmers alleged that about 100 acres of farm lands was proposed to be acquired at Kandiyur, Arasur, Thirupanthurithi and a few other villages near Thiruvaiyaru for laying the new by-pass road. The move was reportedly shelved in 2019 owing to stiff opposition from farmers. But officials were now conducting land surveys to demarcate the land to be acquired, they charged.
Rather than acquire farm lands to build a new bypass road, the existing road can be widened by removing encroachments, they suggested.
Some of the farmers held black flags while a few others carried begging bowls in their hands as a symbolic protest to highlight their plight.