Violate building laws and rest easy, Govt will come to your rescue

By-law violators, relax now
25% Deviations In Koramangala To Be Regularised: Minister

The Times of India


Bangalore: There’s a new twist to the ongoing protest by Koramangala residents against court orders to demolish buildings violating bylaws: municipal administration minister S R Morey on Tuesday said deviations up to 25 per cent in constructions will be regularised. The government will re-send the Bill to the governor or issue an ordinance within a week.

However, deputy chief minister M P Prakash, who chaired the cabinet sub-committee meeting where Morey was present, chose to differ. “There are some hurdles and we have sought the law department’s opinion. We have to decide how to make the regularisation drive more transparent and whether to channelise the fee collected from regularisation for infrastructure development or to the local bodies. The law department will reply in another 15 days, following which the cabinet will decide,’’ Prakash outlined.

The Bill, titled the Karnataka Regularisation of Unauthorised Constructions Act (2002), was sent back by Raj Bhavan twice in the past — 1999 and 2002 — seeking clarifications. But the government has decided to take another chance. Morey said: “The legislature has passed the Bill regularising such deviations, but the governor sent it back. We are now sending it again, urging him to reconsider.’’

Deviations in Koramangala, ranging from 6 per cent to 200 per cent, were the subject of a public interest litigation (PIL) before the high court which ordered immediate demolition of such structures. But the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s (BMP) attempts to demolish the same have been thwarted by residents.

The Bill, brought through an amendment to the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act, empowers urban local bodies to execute the mass regularisation scheme. Hailed as a revolutionary move by the S M Krishna government, the Bill envisages mass regularisation of illegal and violated buildings by specifying a cut-off date.

The Bill has pinned the maximum limit of violations at 50 per cent, and the cut-off date was December 31, 2003. The one-time regularisation was to be done after collecting hefty penalty.
The Bill, which has laid down certain parameters for regularisation, specified that buildings will not be regularised if they are on land belonging to government and local authorities; proposed alignments to ring roads, national highways, land abutting river course, beds, canals; land reserved for park, open space, civic amenities, basements; construction in violation of setback norms without NoC from the affected neighbour.

Opposition BJP legislators R Ashok, Aravind Limbavali and Katta Subramanya Naidu had approached chief minister N Dharam Singh and suggested that the deviations be legalised through an ordinance.

CRACKING THE WHIP


Residential buildings: 10% of property value up to 25% violation; 20% of property value if it’s above 25% violation, up to a maximum of 50%.
Non-residential buildings: Penalty will be double.
An amendment to KMC Act to introduce Capital Value System had mooted collecting double the amount of property tax from violated buildings till such time the mass regularisation Bill is not approved.