BDA counting losses

BDA counting losses
Deccan Herald

The HC verdict has thrown a spanner in BDA’s works. Crores of rupees have been spent on a layout that might just get buried under illegal constructions.

With Friday’s High Court verdict returning the ownership rights of the land acquired for the jinxed Arkavathy Layout to its original owners, Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) officials are now apprehensive about haphazard constructions coming up at the proposed layout area.

The local residents, from whom BDA acquired land for the project, may now take up construction activity on their plots by getting their building plan approved by local urban bodies. This in other words means that all works done under the first phase of layout formation (levelling of earth, construction of storm water drains, shoulder drains, street numbering and other civil works) by BDA so far will be in tatters.

In fact, many local residents who have been opposing the project, had constructed houses on their plots despite the BDA acquiring those land. Nearly 500 acres of the total 2,750 acres of the proposed layout was teeming with such “unauthorised” constructions. As a result, BDA could not take up layout formation work on these lands.

“We are concerned about construction activities that may come up following the High Court order. People had been building temporary houses and sheds just to create problems for the BDA. Now, with the land going back to them, they (local residents) can do anything they like, until and unless BDA gets the court order stayed,” BDA sources told Deccan Herald.

Of the 2,750 acres earmarked for the layout, 2,150 acres belonged to individual landowners, while the rest was government land. After the court order, BDA is now left with only 600 acres of land in its possession, the sources said.

If more constructions come up in the proposed layout area, BDA will have to demolish these buildings in the event of BDA winning the legal battle in future. “Building demolition needs to be dealt separately and seriously. More over, razing thousands of buildings is a mammoth task and may lead to further legal battles,” official sources pointed out.

Above all, any construction in the area, would mean that BDA will lose crores of rupees spent on the first phase of the layout formation work. “So far, nearly 60 per cent of the total work had been completed. Levelling of earth was done on almost 70 per cent of the acquired land, at ann expenditure of nearly Rs 40 crore,” the officials added. Besides, around Rs 3 crore spent by BDA to give compensation to persons whose lands had been acquired, has also got struck.

GOVT MOVE

Bangalore, dhns: The State government will take a decision on whether to appeal against the Karnataka High Court order on the Arkavathy Layout after studying the judgment.

“The Law Department will study the judgment and take a decision,” Law Minister H K Patil told reporters in Bangalore. “I am yet to go through the judgment,” he added.