1995 CDP had violated green belt norms

1995 CDP had violated green belt norms

The Times of India

Bangalore: In its new Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP), Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) wants “controlled development’’ of the green belt, but an ongoing court case has revealed that the agency was unable to prevent encroachment in the old CDP itself.

The case filed in 1997 holds BDA, Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA) and the government — represented by the secretary, housing and urban development department — responsible for “allowing buildings, apartments, commercial complexes, group housing schemes and private layouts’’ in the green belt of the 1995 CDP.

The petitioner, B. Krishna Bhat, said then that the authorities had not objected to these construction activities. He had prayed that the court direct the agencies to keep the green belt intact and act against those responsible for the constructions.

In 1998, during one of the hearings for the case, the court appointed Prabha Murthy as court commissioner to investigate the ‘violations’ in the green belt. After a month-long investigation, she reported that at that time, there were 336 layouts, 13 resorts and 42 crushers and quarries in the green belt area.

Prabha said that out of the 392 villages in the green belt, only 120 remained intact. She found that most of the agricultural land was barren and had been sold to land developers who, in turn, developed them into residential sites and layouts.

Some developers, she said, had apparently bought the land for farming but later turned it into layouts or sites. The court commissioner observed that in some villages, government gomal land had been distributed under government schemes such as Ashraya and Janata Colony. In other places, there was dumping of garbage from Bangalore. “The garbage and the quarries in the green belt pose a threat to the environment,’’ Murthy has noted in her report.

What Bhat’s lawyer, N.D.R. Ramachandra Rao, now wants to know is whether BDA or the government is capable of protecting the green belt in the 2005 CDP when “the belt in the old CDP has already been destroyed’’. When contacted, officials of the BDA legal department admitted that the 1997 case is still pending disposal. But they maintained they did not know whether the case has any implications on the authority’s draft 2005 CDP or the green belt proposed in it. Another official said BDA has already issued notices against all unauthorised layouts in the green belt. “The authority now has to reexamine old files to see if the court case is still relevant,’’ the official added.

Meanwhile, sources told the Sunday Times of India that the case has now been posted to July 11 and will be heard at 2.30 pm in court hall No.1.