After impressive turn around, BDA's future looks bleak

After impressive turn around, BDA's future looks bleak
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: After witnessing a ``turn around'' in the last five years, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is now facing the threat of closure.

The High Court in its judgment last Friday had said that BDA was not competent to take up development work outside city limits. The court had also directed the State to set up Bangalore Metropolitan Authority (BMA) for development of the city by bringing all civic agencies under one umbrella.

Reacting to HC's verdict, Chief Minister Dharam Singh on April 16 had said that State would set up BMA on the lines of existing authorities in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai.

This means BDA will not form layouts outside Bangalore City Corporation (BCC) thus cutting off its primary source of revenue. It will also restrict BDA's powers to revise the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) of the city, thus rendering the authority jobless.

In 1998, the Janata Dal Government led by late J.H. Patel had taken a Cabinet decision to wind up BDA based on the report submitted IAS officer A. Ravindra. The decision was taken to wind up the authority as it had become ``white elephant'', depending on the Government to pay salaries to its employees.

When the Congress Government came to power in 1999, then chief minister S.M. Krishna appointed Jayakar Jerome as commissioner and extended ``unstinted'' support to revive BDA.

As a result, the BDA which went through a period of inactivity from 1990-99 with just 8,400 sites being allotted in the 10 years, saw a significant scale up from the year 2000-01 and 2003-04 by allotting 45,000 sites.

This improved BDA's financial position significantly through sale of sites, initial deposits, registration fee, sale of applications, and others. During this period, BDA also went aggressive on recovering encroached land thus generating additional revenue.

BDA has now come a full circle. It is again on the verge of closure. ``There is hope provided the State makes an amendment to existing BDA Act and enhances it to the powers of a metropolitan authority,'' says JD(U) floor leader J.C. Madhuswamy.

Now the future of the BDA hinges on the outcome of the Cabinet meeting likely to take place later this week.