‘G’ category to get 30 pc of BDA recovered sites

‘G’ category to get 30 pc of BDA recovered sites
Sandeep Moudgal , Bangalore, Oct 20, DH News Service:

The controversial ‘G’ category (CM’s discretionary quota) will be allotted 30 per cent of the 328.25 acres of land recovered by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) in the last 10 years. Barely one-third of this property will be available to the general public.


According to the rule book, 15 per cent of the land is reserved for those who have excelled in the field of sports, 10 per cent for those who have excelled in various other walks of life and five per cent each for servicemen, freedom fighters and dependents of government servants. The BDA could recover only 328.25 acres of the approximately 2,500 acres of land encroached in the last decade.

As of October 16, 2009, the BDA has recovered 18 acres of land for the financial year 2009-10. A slow start, compared to the previous fiscal when the development authority was able to recover 54 acres of land.

But, a look at the property value shows that the year’s first six months have already filled the BDA coffers with revenue from the auctioning of these lands up to a maximum of 203 crore. The total value generated from the 2008-09 land recovery was Rs 503 crore.

Legal battles

The delay in recovering the lands that belong to the BDA has been attributed to the long-drawn legal battles in the various courts of the State and the Supreme Court. BDA Superintendent of Police, Mallikarjun Swamy told Deccan Herald: “Most of these land recoveries are made after obtaining the court permission and sorting out litigations. Since these are the cases that take months and years together, the recovery process does depend upon the outcome of court cases.”

Of the sites that have been recovered over the past 10 years, approximately 90 per cent will be allotted for residential purposes and only 10 per cent is earmarked for commercial use.

Slow progress

The slow progress in recovery of the sites, nonetheless, has helped the BDA fund most of its developmental work by auctioning these ‘stray’ sites in the past few years.
According to officials, the land recovery and later its auctioning at the market rates has become a source of income to help fund the BDA projects in the City. “The auctioning of these stray sites helps us keep our funds at a consistent level in relation to our developmental projects,” informed Mallikarjun Swamy.