Palike dangles ‘BDA site’ carrot

Palike dangles ‘BDA site’ carrot
G Manjusainath, Bangalore, Jan 25, DH News Service:

The grandiose plans of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to persuade citizens to part with land for its infrastructure projects having flopped, it is now planning to dangle the carrot of Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) sites to attract prospective takers.


One more major reason behind the unpopularity of the Transferable Development Rights (TDR) scheme is the recession affecting the real estate business. Another challenging factor of TDR’s popularity is the Sakrama scheme to regularise illegal structures.
Worried by the unpopularity of the TDR scheme for those set to lose property to various infrastructure projects, the BBMP has now approached the BDA for house sites that it can offer to land losers.

BBMP Commissioner Bharatlal Meena recently wrote to the BDA asking it to reserve sites for the BBMP.

“We have recently written a letter to the BDA. We had a conversation with the BDA officials in this regard but they seem unwilling. They advised us to acquire land and form layouts for the property losers, which is very difficult for us to do,” Meena said.
On his part, BDA Commissioner Siddaiah says he is yet to receive the letter from the BBMP Commissioner. “All we have received is a proposal from the BBMP Commissioner to reserve 50 acres of land in the new layouts for solid waste management and reservation of some sites for the Paurakarmikas,” said Siddaiah.

Before launching road widening projects in various parts of the city, the BBMP assured TDRs to prospective losers of property. The Palike tried to convince people that there would be great demand for the TDRs in the City, particularly among builders who planned to build more floors than sanctioned.

It appears that the TDRs did not attract people, despite BBMP’s high hopes of opening a TDR Bank. Well-placed sources in the BBMP requesting anonymity said that around 25,000 to 30,000 TDR forms were distributed among the property losers but only 35 had applied for it.

The cold response made the BBMP dump its proposal of starting a TDR bank.
The BBMP stumbled upon the idea of issuing TDRs because of its empty coffers. The BBMP has no money to pay compensation to property losers. Sources said the BBMP is running short of funds.

A few months ago, BBMP didnot even have money to pay its staff. Now the contractors are up in the arms against the Palike for not paying their dues running into crores of rupees.