The State government is losing about ₹1,000 crore annually on Shivaram Karanth layout following a High Court stay, said Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Thursday in the Legislative Council.

“The government has invested about ₹7,000 crore for the development of the layout. Due to the stay order, we are unable to allot sites in the layout. The government is seeking legal advice from the Advocate General on this matter. The government faces a loss of about ₹1,000 crore annually due to the stay order.” He pointed out that though the acquisition process commenced 15 years ago, compensation to farmers have not been given yet.

PRR project

Speaking on the Peripheral Ring Road project, the Deputy Chief Minister said that he was not ready to go to jail by denotifying land, but the project cannot be stopped.

“We are looking at alternatives. We are trying to take land from farmers under the 60:40 scheme. Near Gottigere, though the land has been notified for the road, revenue layouts have come up and there are about 5,000 homes. We are considering an elevated portion of the road,” he told Legislative Council in response to a question on the fate of houses that have come up in revenue layouts besides seeking scrapping of the project.

“I am not ready to go to jail by denotifying the land. Even our government is not ready to do it. The preliminary notification was issued in 2006, and since then, no government has denotified the land. We cannot drop the road project at any cost. It is a ₹26,000-crore project,” he said. Though no farmer is cultivating the land, compensation has not been provided for about 20 years. “Land prices in those areas are upto ₹20 crore an acre,” he said.

When Mr. Gopinath asked who would get the compensation for the land acquired, he said that whoever has the documents will receive compensation.