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’.