Arkavathy: BDA meeting postponed

Arkavathy: BDA meeting postponed

The Hindu

It was to decide on land available for allotment of sites

Bangalore: The meeting of the board of directors of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) to decide on the land available for allotment of Arkavathy sites has been postponed by a week due to the change at the top. M.K. Shankarlinge Gowda took charge as the new commissioner of the BDA on Friday.

The meeting that was initially scheduled for May 8 will now be held on May 16. From it, BDA officials say, they will have a clear picture of the land available to them for allotment.

Of the 2,750 acres of land notified for the layout, nearly 748 acres of land are in dispute. There are 1,424 aggrieved landowners, the majority of whom are revenue site owners, seeking exclusion of their land from the acquisition process. They say that their land is either situated in the green belt, is totally built up, or comprises property constructed by charitable, educational or religious institutions, nursery lands or industries.

As directed by the High Court of Karnataka, the BDA is holding talks with the aggrieved landowners. The discussion and inspections of the lands have also been completed.

Allottees anxious

Many short-listed applicants for the layout are worried that the postponement in the meeting of the board of directors of the BDA would involve further delay in them receiving their allotment papers.

M.N. Vidyashankar, previous Commissioner, had set a deadline of May 31 for the disbursement of allotment papers. A major chunk of the sites, almost 15,000 of them, were to be allotted by the end of the month. The BDA has allotted 1,810 sites in land not under dispute.

BDA officials say that a new deadline for disbursement of allotment papers will be drawn up only after the meeting of the BDA's board of directors.

"We hope there is no delay in us getting the allotment papers. We have been waiting for them from January," says V. Suseela, an applicant.