BDA recovers 2,200 acres of land

BDA recovers 2,200 acres of land

The Hindu

Market value of the land estimated at Rs. 2,200 crore

Bangalore: It is truly a case of laughing all the way to the bank for Bangalore Development Authority (BDA). During 2005-06, it recovered property estimated at Rs. 288.45 crore after demolishing illegal constructions and removing encroachments.

BDA officials say recovering an estimated 2,200 acres of encroached upon property in and around the city is going to be a major asset building exercise. The additional advantage is it can plan more layouts for those seeking homes of their own.

Property prices are ruling high and even if BDA is not after profits but would keep its social obligations first, recovered properties will add crores of rupees to its funds.

Property recovery is being stepped up and in just one demolition drive last month, property estimated at Rs. 21 crore was recovered in Sector 4 of H.S.R. Layout. A lot of groundwork such as scrutiny of suspicious documents and cross checking with its records goes on before a demolition drive was taken up.

Encroachments, asbestos roofed sheds or RCC buildings are demolished with the local police providing security.

The BDA often receives complaints about encroachments and follows them up. The area engineers visit the spot and cross check survey numbers with authentic official survey maps. The Deputy Commissioner's office checks other maps to find out if the land actually belongs to the BDA or not.

The north division coming under BDA is believed to have the largest number of encroachments and these are mostly in the Hennur Road-Banaswadi Road and OMBR Layout areas and east of NGEF.

Till recently, there were plenty of open lands there and land grabbers were attracted to them. Thanks to the city's lateral growth, these outer suburbs were now desirable residential areas for many. Once a property is verified as belonging to BDA, it conducts other enquiries to find out if there is any related litigation pending in courts. It is after this that the Superintending Engineer in charge of the area issued the demolition order. The BDA task force, along with the local police, carry out the actual demolition.