What if properties violating master plan have civic permits?

The Hindu: Bangalore: Thursday, 28 May 2015.

Properties that will be severely hit will be those constructed in the newly added areas with legal permits from the respective panchayats and councils.

Now that Akrama Sakrama will take BDA master plan as the basis to calculate the extent of violation, numerous properties that have requisite permits by the BBMP and erstwhile local bodies but nevertheless violate provisions of the master plan will also turn illegal and will have to be regularised after a fine.

Properties that will be severely hit will be those constructed in the newly added areas with legal permits from the respective panchayats and councils.

For instance, Yelahanka, Mahadevapura and R R Nagar were governed by City Municipal Councils (CMC) before 2007 and BDA sources conceded that the master plan was not strictly adhered to by these erstwhile civic bodies outside Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP). Now plans approved by these local bodies will be declared to be violations as per this circular, a member in BDA’s Town Planning Department confirmed.

BDA commissioner T Sham Bhatt said that the master plan is sacrosanct and any violation, even if BBMP or any other civic authority has given due permits, would still be considered illegal, he said.

The Akrama Sakrama notification defines such properties as authorised and violated development.

However, another official said that the notification neither clearly puts down guidelines for regularisation in such cases nor brings the civic agencies that have permitted such development to book.

KIC forced BBMP to notify guidelines

Though it has been over a year since the government notified the Akrama Sakrama rules, there was no formula for calculating the extent of violations.

BBMP commissioner issued a circular on May 13, only after three successive orders by the Karnataka Information Commission (KIC) in November 2013, July 2014 and April 2015, to notify the guidelines. An RTI activist B.H. Veeresh had approached the KIC after BBMP said there were no such guidelines.

Buildings are legal for want of norms

Buildings that were built before 1972, the year when the first Outline Development Plan (ODP) was notified, are all legal now as the Akrama Sakrama only considers the master plan, to calculate the extent of violation.

Not just them, thousands of old buildings in Whitefield, R R Nagar and Yelahanka may also benefit from such a rule. These areas were included in the BDA conurbation area only during the Revised Master Plan 1995. Any buildings built in such areas before they were included into the BDA conurbation area would now be legal with a permit from the then panchayat.