Amitabh Bachchan can now be called a farmer from Uttar Pradesh. The actor has earned the title after bagging the ownership of 2.403 hectares agricultural land in Kakori, about 20km from Lucknow. One hectare equals approximately one lakh square feet.
Bachchan’s son Abhishek and wife Jaya too have bought agricultural land and are in queue to get the title of ‘farmer’ soon. The family has together bought six hectares worth more than Rs3.82 crore.
This was Bachchan’s second attempt at becoming a farmer. He had bought land in Daulatpur village of Barabanki district, about 35km from Lucknow, when Mulayam Singh Yadav was chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
The deal ran into legal trouble and the case was transferred to the Supreme Court. The superstar was accused of acquiring ownership of the land through forged documents. He later offered to donate the land to the village to set up a girls’ school, but that project too ran into legal trouble and has failed to take off.
Bachchan has been lucky with the land in Kakori. He concluded the deal without legal trouble. With the deadline for filing objections against Bachchan’s ownership expiring at 5pm on Monday, the actor became the legal owner of the agricultural land.
He had bought the land in Muzzaffarnagar village on Sitapur road for Rs1.55 crore.
Vishwamitra Singh, naib tehsildar of Kakori, said only some paperwork remains to be completed before Amitabh can officially be declared a ‘farmer’. Abhishek and Jaya will acquire similar status once the 45-day period for filing objections against their land deals expires in two weeks.
Bachchan needed to establish himself as a farmer to regularise his ownership of 20 acres of agricultural land he had bought in Maval near Lonavla in 2000 under Maharashtra’s Tenancy and Agricultural Land Act, 1963. As per the act, only farmers can buy agricultural land in Maharashtra. The Pune district authorities had issued a notice to Bachchan in November 2005 asking him to prove his status as a farmer.
