Poor response to BBMP’s regularisation scheme

Poor response to BBMP’s regularisation scheme

Afshan Yasmeen

Citizens oppose decision to cut water and power supply

BANGALORE: The State Government’s move to regularise unauthorised constructions in the city seems to have hit a road block.

Though the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has sold more than 1.4 lakh applications since September 15 to regularise illegal constructions, only a fraction of property owners have applied. Under the Karnataka Town and Country Planning (Regularisation of unauthorised development or constructions) rules, 2007, seven corporations in the State, including Bangalore, have embarked upon the regularisation process.

Reacting to the poor response, the BBMP has threatened to cut water and power supply to those who do not make use of the scheme. This has led to protests from property owners and civic groups.

P.V. Krishnamurthy of Lingarajpuram owns a house on a revenue site in the area. He bought the land in the 1950s and neither has a building plan sanctioned by the civic authorities nor has he got his land converted. But he has been regularly paying property tax to the civic body.

Similarly, A.R. Kantharaj owns a house in Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar. His father had bought the land when the area was administered by the HAL Sanitary Board. Then the area was transferred to the Mahadevapura City Municipal Council and now it has been included in the BBMP limits.

Going by the new rules, such property owners should get their land converted by paying a fee to the BBMP. But the owners question why they should pay a huge amount to the BBMP when they had built their houses even before the BBMP existed?

“If they had known that my house is on revenue land, why did they sanction water and power connections? Why should I accept all of a sudden that my site needs to be converted? I don’t care even if they disconnect, because we get water only twice a week that too for one hour,” M.I. Patrick of Lingarajpuram said. With several ambiguities in the new rules, there is confusion among property owners. “So what if their house was built when the BBMP did not exist? They are in the city limits now and have been enjoying all civic amenities. Besides, even if the civic body did not exist the owners should have obtained their property documents from the local authority,” official sources said. Admitting that there is no clarity in the rules, the sources said they themselves had doubts about the success of the scheme.

BBMP Commissioner S. Subramanya said the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act provided for disconnection of water and power supply of violators. “We are only following the Act,” he said.