Wednesday, July 30, 2014

BDA disowns 'illegal' layout, land encroachers appropriate it

Deccan Herald: Bangalore: Wednesday, July 30, 2014.
The condition of the erstwhile Venkatarayana Kere at Gubbalala village in Uttarahalli has gone from bad to worse.
As if the encroachment by Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), which formed the ‘lake bed layout’ on it was not sufficient, land sharks are out to grab the remaining portion of the lake land and huge tracts of government and BDA lands adjacent to it.
For the past few weeks, hectic activities were noticed around the lake (Sy No 8). The nefarious designs of the land grabbers came to the fore when they started fencing the government land.
This happened a month after the BDA Town Planning member A V Rangesh confessed in his written reply to an RTI query that the Authority formed the layout on the lake bed illegally and that the BDA Board would not approve it.
His confession came after the Bangalore South tahsildar, in his reply to an RTI query, said that the layout was formed illegally without seeking the consent of the Revenue department.
Ever since the BDA disowned the land, the layout has become an encroachers’ paradise. The elected representatives too have shut their eyes to the large-scale encroachment.
G C Prakash, deputy commissioner of Bangalore Urban, who was unaware about the incident, said that he would check with the revenue inspector of the area to find out the facts.
Repeated calls and an SMS to BDA Commissioner Sham Bhat, to get his version, went in vain.
The BDA, a government body, itself stole the lake 10 years ago and formed a layout called Banashankari 6th Stage without government approval. Though the BDA Board didn’t approve it, the officials allotted all sites to individuals. Further, the BDA engineers sanctioned the building plans to the site owners, which paved the way for BWSSB to give sewage and water connection and Bescom to provide electricity connections.
This is the only layout formed by BDA which does not have any civic amenity site, playground or park. It is more a slum than a layout. A BDA commissioner had once called the layout a bunch of ‘gramathana sites’.