‘6,000 acres, all yours’

‘6,000 acres, all yours’
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Even as former Prime Minister and JD(S) Supremo H D Deve Gowda has declared war against IT companies for alleged land grab around the City, the coalition government is quietly preparing the ground to hand over more than 6,000 acres of prime land bordering the City to IT companies in the next ten years.

If the proposed Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) of Bangalore for the next ten years were implemented, IT companies would get 50 per cent of lands in the proposed development belt of 53 sq km.

According to the CDP prepared by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), nearly 6,200 acres of agricultural land would be acquired and given to the IT and ITES companies to develop the proposed IT Corridor in the next decade.

Villages around Bangalore like Whitefield and Varthur will make way for new IT townships. The CDP envisages that the City would spread across 300 sq. km in the next ten years.

Fifty per cent of the 5,200 hectare in Varthur would be given to IT companies. The lands are spread in Varthur, Gunjur, Sora Hunase, Doddakkanahalli and Pantur villages and Ward 23, 36, 30 and 31 of Mahadevapura CMC.

Of the 3,884 hectares of lands in Whitefield, 75 per cent has already been urbanised. The CDP envisages allotment of the remaining 25 per cent to the IT companies.

Villages around Whitefiled including Tirumalashetty Halli, Ramagondanahally, Kundalahalli, Nagondanahalli and Ward 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 29 of Mahadevapura would make way for a new IT hub.

Interestingly, the CDP speaks very little about the slums in Bangalore. It terms them as makeshift and proposes no specific solutions to eradicate them. It may be recalled that Deve Gowda has been raging against IT companies and accusing them of grabbing prime land around Bangalore.

His specific grouse was against Infosys, which had sought 800 acres in Bangalore. JD(S) being a part of the coalition government, what Gowda will now say will make political and IT circles very, very curious.