Residents protest demolitions

Residents protest demolitions

The Hindu

Traffic on 80-ft road and Inner Ring Road in Koramangala disrupted for an hour


Bangalore: Angry residents of Koramangala blocked traffic on the busy 80 Feet Road and Inner Ring Road junction for close to an hour on Tuesday morning.

They were protesting against the demolition of buildings, which the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike had found violating zoning regulations and building bylaws. Many shops, offices and commercial establishments in Koramangala remained closed in the forenoon.

The BMP began its demolition drive on Saturday, following a direction from the Karnataka High Court to survey and identify buildings which violated norms.

According to BMP Chief Engineer (East) Sathyanarayana, "preliminary notices" were served initially on 87 buildings and confirmatory orders on 61 of them last week.

So far, four buildings have been demolished, he said. The BMP is in the process of identifying 100 other buildings, which may have to be totally or partially demolished.

"This will be a month-long process and more buildings are being identified in Indiranagar, HAL 2nd Stage and Domlur, whose owners will be served notices. We are holding a meeting and will decide whether to resume demolitions on Wednesday or not," he said. No demolitions were carried out on Tuesday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Alok Kumar said he held discussions with the protesting residents and businessmen and persuaded them not to block traffic or close shops. However, the residents said they will continue with their protests on Wednesday too and block the road.

"If the BMP wants to continue with demolitions, we have kept in readiness five police teams under Inspectors and two armed reserve platoons. I will be personally supervising the security arrangements," Mr. Kumar said.

IT firms upset

Many of the buildings which were served notices house information technology firms, mainly software developers. According to them, while the BMP has every right to follow court orders and serve notices on the building owners, the tenant firms are left in the lurch.

"The software developed by us is held in bond to the Software Technology Park of India (STPI) and cannot be removed from the premises without their approval. Now we do not know how to save our valuable software over which hundreds of man hours have been spent and which have been ordered by clients overseas," managers of several software firms said. "The news about the demolitions which had reached overseas has also created misgivings among our clients," they said.