BMP working out steps for amnesty to owners

BMP working out steps for amnesty to owners
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) has been busy preparing an action plan to grant waiver to those buildings that had violated the rules, following a recent Government decision in this regard.

Commissioner K Jairaj held a meeting with BMP officials on Tuesday to chalk out the modalities.

However, the civic body faces a challenge in convincing owners to declare violations and seek amnesty.

But Jairaj plans to adopt a two-pronged approach. One one hand, the civic body will demolish or seal off portions that have been built in major violation of the rules, and on the another, BMP will grant waiver if the owners declare them in the application.

Jairaj said that property owners can submit declarations to the three zonal joint commissioners and BMP would not even cross-check the claim if the built-up area is less than 4000 square feet. The applications to approve larger buildings would have to pass a BMP scrutiny.

But what about the violations that are in excess of compounding limit? According to the Regularisation Bill, the buildings that are found to be violation of rules up to 25 per cent would be condoned for a fee.

The limit for commercial buildings is 50 per cent. But what happens to excess portions? That is a question to which even the Commissioner has no answer.

Jairaj said that one option would be to seal off the portion from use by the owner. But how does one seal off part of a hall? And to divide rooms with walls could be an expensive affair.

The Commissioner said the civic body would find some way to tackle the problem and the entire exercise would have to be completed within three months.