Koramangala violations: BMP gives residents more time to reply

Koramangala violations: BMP gives residents more time to reply

The Hindu

Show-cause notices list nature and extent of violations to building bylaws

# BMP takes up a survey of buildings following a High Court order
# Notices issued to 120 owners and tenants
# The BMP files caveats in lower courts and High Court

BANGALORE: The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) has decided to extend the time limit given to those residents of Koramangala who were found to have allegedly violated building bylaws, illegally changed the land use or encroached upon the footpaths or adjoining lands.

Till last week, the BMP had only given a week's time to owners/builders and tenants to reply to its notice asking them why action should not be taken for having violated the buildings norms and illegally changing the nature of the building from residential to commercial.

The BMP had taken up a survey of all buildings in Koramangala following a High Court order. A public interest litigation (PIL) petition by some residents of Koramangala had alleged large-scale violations of building norms and had sought a direction to the BMP to take remedial action.

The petitioners had furnished a list of 87 buildings, which they claimed, had violated building norms. The court had ordered an inquiry and the BMP had reported back that most of the buildings had violated norms. The court had taken the BMP to task for allowing the violations and asked it to survey all the 6,000 buildings in the locality.

The BMP began the survey last month and till now has issued 120 notices to both the owners and tenants of buildings which were found to have violated the rules.

The notices, detailing the violations, had given a week's time for reply. Several residents found a week's time too short and had approached the Karnataka High Court for more time.

After a single judge had agreed with the residents' plea for more time, the BMP decided to extend the time to reply to its notices by another week. Commencing from Monday (October 17), the BMP has been giving two weeks' time to the residents to reply to the notices.

A team of BMP officials is going ahead with the survey in a systematic manner.

The BMP is listing in the show-cause notice the nature and extent of violations.

This has been done to not only prevent loss of time while communicating with the residents but also cut down on the time in setting right the violations.

Caveat

The BMP has filed caveats in both the lower courts and the High Courts asking that it be heard if any petition was filed against the show-cause notice issued to the owners and tenants. On Monday, the BMP filed 25 more caveats in the courts. As on today, the BMP has in all filed 145 caveats.

The caveats are being filed in the courts after the violations are noted.