Finders, GRABBERS

Finders, GRABBERS
POINT 7: The government can crack down on land encroachment only if there is political will driving it
S Kushala | TNN


With booming real estate prices, land has become hot property in Bangalore. What once used to be the city’s lifeline for water supply — fresh water lakes and tanks — have now become layouts and cesspool. Land sharks have not spared government land either.
Over the last two years, shocking revelations have come to the fore over land encroachment cases which outlined the involvement of senior politicians in the previous governments. And every government
wants to tread a safe path with regard to land encroachments as it will have to deal with the high and mighty.
A joint legislature committee headed by former MLA A T Ramaswamy was formed to identify government land encroachments and it worked for a year along with the officials to gather information and build up a database. And through a massive exercise, land surveyors studied every inch of land to identify land grabbing.
The findings were shocking. It’s just not a local slum dweller who has encroached upon the storm water drains becoming a reason for its flooding. Or a farmer with a small land holding who had occupied a portion of the government land next to his property. The lure of Bangalore’s booming realty market and the vast expanse of prime government lands has had the who’s who of the city involved to grab their slice of the cake.
Of the 1,30,343 acres of government land in Bangalore Urban district, as many as 41,303 acres were encroached upon valued at a whopping Rs 50,000 crore. According to the 1000-page final report prepared on the government land encroachment by Bangalore Urban district deputy commissioner M A Sadiq for the joint house committee, top on the list of 45,863 encroachers were prominent persons including liquor barons, pontiffs, politicians, film producers and defence personnel.
The survey of government land was taken up a year ago and this massive exercise was spearheaded by Sadiq. After all the initial brouhaha over the issue, the government announced action against erring officials as well as land grabbers. But the issue died a silent death.
No government wants to take up land encroachment issue on a bigger scale though the previous government took some initiatives, but did not take the issue to its logical end. There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered. What happened to the cases where politicians and powerful people were involved? Why were no criminal cases filed against them? How many officers, hand in glove with offenders, were brought to book?
The 1,000-page report on government land encroachment probably is gathering dust. Though evictions have happened in some cases, recovered land has been allotted to various departments for their projects and several cases have been registered against the land grabbers.
The issue which is forgotten by everyone suddenly comes to the fore when the city gets inundated. In 2005 October, when the skies opened up and Bangalore was flooded, the one reason identified for the watery mess was the encroachment of storm water drains, primary valleys and raja kaluves. Well-built structures stood bang on the raja kaluves that blocked the flow of water. The waste weir of the lakes were choked due to urbanisation at the mouth of the water body.
The district administration took up an exercise to clear the valleys of encroachment at Puttenahalli and Nayandahalli where buildings were brought down like a pack of cards.
Land encroachment is definitely a dicey issue and the fate of the report on the House committee findings is in the hands of the BJP government. But ironically, the committee has named a few of the present BJP ministers in the report who allegedly have encroached government lands. Whether the report will lie in cold storage or resurrected for a fresh lease of life, has to be watched.