In March 2025, the Greater Bengaluru Development Authority sent land acquisition notices to farmers in Ramanagara district, planning to seize over 9,000 acres across ten villages to build an "AI city" — the Bidadi township. More than 10,000 farming families, over 53,000 people, face displacement.
A team of All India Students' Association (AISA) activists visited on June 4 the region to see the ground reality, and what we found directly contradicts the government's claims.
Officials, including D.K. Shivakumar, has called this "barren land" with "few or no farmers." What we saw was the opposite: thick green cover, thousands of arecanut, coconut, mango, and banana trees, thriving ragi and paddy fields, and one of Asia's largest cocoon markets. The region also produces nearly six lakh litres of milk every month.
Most landowners hold small plots — a majority less than an acre — and work their own land alongside hired labourers, many from marginalized castes. Families here use their earnings into irrigation, tools, and their children's education, since the area has no government schools.
The promised "development" has a bitter precedent nearby: the older Bidadi Industrial Area has mostly given displaced families' children low-paying, hazardous jobs, while pollution has turned the Vrishabhavathi River toxic. Farmers fear the same fate, alongside the felling of nearly 200,000 trees and the draining of groundwater for data centers.
For over 450 days, farmers — led from Byramangala — have protested through sit-ins, rallies, and roadblocks, facing FIRs but refusing to back down. Their struggle continues, echoing the recent farmers' victory in Devanahalli.
