Gowda for 10-year moratorium on resale of BDA sites

Gowda for 10-year moratorium on resale of BDA sites

The owners of BDA sites are reselling them at 10 times the original price but are registering the property at BDA rates to evade stamp duty, the JD(S) supremo pointed out in his letter.
Deccan Herald

Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda has written another letter to Chief Minister N Dharam Singh on Wednesday, urging him to restore the old system of imposing a 10-year moratorium on the resale of sites allotted by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA).

In the letter, copies of which were released to the press, Mr Gowda argued that lifting of the moratorium by the previous Congress government, on the resale of BDA sites by the allottees, was causing a huge loss to the State exchequer in the form of evasion of stamp duty.

A large number of middle-class people are selling off the BDA sites, within days of allotment, to rich people, who offer attractive prices which are 10 folds higher than the BDA prices, he observed. But the stamp duty on these resales would be meagre as the buyers would register the property at the rates indicated by the BDA.

Most of such transaction involved black money as astronomical sums are paid, he alleged. In addition to the loss to exchequer, such practices were also contributing to the spiralling of land value in Bangalore. Besides, the purpose of the BDA — to provide sites to the landless middle and lower middle class — was also getting defeated through such resales, he argued.

Notified lands
Mr Gowda also pointed out that unauthorised residential constructions had come up on thousands of acres, which had been notified for acquisition by the BDA for layout formation. It was mainly due to the owners of notified lands selling off their property. Such problems are rampant in areas such as BTM Layout and Nandini Layout, as all the civic amenities had been provided to these unauthorised layouts.
Recalling that the erstwhile JD government had brought a legislation to regularise such unauthorised constructions by collecting penalty in 1996, he suggested that the coalition government should implement the Act so that it could garner some revenue.

Such step would also help check the spiralling land value. However, regularisation should be confined to constructions on smaller plots measuring 20 x 30 and 30 x 40 to help the poor and prevent land sharks from taking advantage of the regularisation scheme, he said.

Mr Gowda came down heavily on Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) for allegedly selling off its prime land to encroachers.Wondering whether the BMP was in deep slumber, Mr Gowda demanded that any encroachment of prime land, within the BMP limits, should never be regularised. Such property should be confiscated and used for public purposes or auctioned publicly.

Mr Gowda urged the Chief Minister to implement his suggestion of booking land sharks under the Goondas Act. He also demanded that the ‘Special Task Force’, which had been activated by the then JD government, should be reconstituted and also given more powers to act against land grabbing.