BDA to Crack Whip on Owners Over Land-Use Violation

BDA commissioner directs town planning dept officials to evaluate land-use violations with respect to mobile phone towers

The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is all set to crack the whip against house owners who have rented out their terraces for mobile towers without obtaining conversion certificates for commercial activities.

                                                                                                                                             

This is the first time that some authority is making an effort to rein in the multi-crore mobile-towers’ business in the city. Though there is no specific data on the number of mobile towers across the city, telecom industry sources maintain that there are around 1.25 lakh towers (each weighing anywhere between 3-10 tons) and a majority of these are located in residential areas.

This is in contravention to the BDA rules which mandate house owners to take permission from the BDA to change of land use from residential to commercial if towers are to be installed on their land.

BDA Commissioner T Sham Bhatt issued a directive to town planning department officials to evaluate the land-use violations with respect to mobile phone towers and submit a detailed report.

The commissioner’s directive states: “BDA has been allotting sites to people for residential purposes in various layouts across the city. However, there have been complaints that the beneficiaries have been diverting the same sites for commercial activities like setting up of mobile towers without obtaining land conversion certificate from the jurisdictional development authority. People have also complained about serious ill effects caused by such towers. Hence, I direct all the engineer members of BDA to conduct a detailed inquiry into the issue.”

While BBMP’s control was only to collect various taxes from these layouts, the BDA has retained powers of granting land utilisation and conversion licenses. But in several cases many people appear to be ignorant of these facts and have allowed companies to set up towers atop their houses.

Some RTI activists stated that the BDA (Allotment of Sites) Rules, 1984, clearly say that land in these layouts is allotted only for residential purposes and should not be diverted to commercial activities. Despite these provisions in the act, several site and house owners, without obtaining land conversion certificates from BDA have gone ahead and rented their premises to cellular companies to erect towers.

Despite these gross violations by buildings owners, BDA officials have failed to act. Further, these owners are hardly aware of the health hazards caused by these towers. The concrete roof of any RCC building would be just six inches thick and cannot withstand such huge loads, when you factor in the constant vibration of generator units placed at the foot of these towers. Some towers are placed on buildings more than 25years old. What if these buildings succumb to these constant vibrations?”

According to vaastu beliefs, a house owner gains wealth if he places a heavy object at the south-west. Hence many construct a single room or an over-head water tank in that direction.

Sufficient land left in Arkavathy Layout: BDA

The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has claimed that it has sufficient land left in the Arkavathy Layout to hand over sites to all the 8,813 allottees.


BDA Commissioner T Sham Bhat said BDA is not denotifying any land in Arkavathy Layout. But we are leaving 285 acres of land that falls under the six parameters that are mentioned by the Supreme Court while delivering its judgment on acquiring the land for the layout.

“We will have sufficient land to give sites to all allottees and form some civic amenities sites even after leaving 285 acres of land and giving sites that we are supposed to give to the land owners (who gave up their lands for the layout),” the commissioner said.

The six parameters that the Supreme Court has directed the BDA to consider while acquiring the land for the layout are - the lands that fall within the green belt area, the lands that are surrounded by fully built-up area, lands belonging to charitable, educational and religious institutions, the lands that are used as nurseries, lands on which factories are established and lands similar to the lands that are denotified earlier.

Arkavathy Layout Allottees Association President G Shivaprakash said “many times, the BDA has gone back on its promises and has lost its credibility. According to the information that we have received, the BDA will find it difficult to hand over sites to all the allottees if it follows all the bylaws. Therefore, we have filed 95 writ of mandamus petitions before the High Court seeking the court’s intervention and they are pending for admission. We will not trust the BDA until it hands over our sites to us.”

The State government had notified 2,750 acres of land to form Arkavathy Layout to allot 20,000 sites to the aspiring applicants in 2003. The BDA had invited applications for sites and allotted 8,813 sites in 2004.

The land owners, who opposed acquisition, approached courts challenging the process by the BDA.

The subsequent governments denotified around 1,000 acres of the land. Despite Supreme Court passing its verdict in favour of the acquisition with certain riders in favour of the land owners, the land owners did not agree to part with their lands. Therefore, the BDA held discussions with them and agreed to give 40 per cent of the developed land to them as compensation for the lands that would be acquired for the layout. Due to these reasons, the BDA has just about enough land to hand over sites to the allottees in the layout.

The BDA is left with around 1,100 acres of land after leaving 285 acres. The BDA has to form the layout and allot sites to all allottees after giving 40 per cent of the developed land to the allottees.

BDA sites in limbo

At least 57 plots developed by the BDA are in a limbo as their titles have allegedly been snatched from the owners in Sir M Visvesvaraya Layout, western Bangalore.

The BDA denotified a 10-acre plot of land and conferred the ownership on two individuals. The land is described as “muffet kaval” (free forest land, but something akin to grazing land), meaning government owned. But the denotification ended up vesting the ownership with the two individuals.

BDA sources said the denotification committee of the BDA board had rejected the application for denotification of the land in 2006, stating that it was required for the layout.

The BDA allegedly kept the site owners in the dark about the fate of their titles. Five of the affected site owners have now approached the Karnataka High Court. They say they were sold the plots during 2003-05. After this, the BDA demanded, and received, tax from most owners.

The site owners then heard rumours that attempts were being made to sell their sites. A couple of them, posing as prospective buyers, contacted brokers operating in the area. They were taken to their own sites and told a 50x80 site would cost no less than Rs 1 crore.

In February, a site owner filed RTI applications with the BDA. Documents obtained a few days ago revealed that the BDA had denotified 7 acres in favour of KV Nagarathnamma on June 20, 2006, and 3 acres in favour of Purohit Jugaraj in September 2007.

The Karnataka high court has issued notices to the government, BDA and the two beneficiaries of the land denotification.

Availability of BDA, KHB units will reduce demand for private developers’ flats

BDA allot 3-bedroom houses at Rs 27 lakh while private developers charge more than Rs50 lakh

Bangalore Development Authority’s (BDA) proposal for allotment of 6,190 low-cost housing
units and Karnataka Housing Board’s (KHB) initiative to construct 3,000 flats in and around
the city are likely to affect the realty sector in Bangalore.

Infrastructure experts pointed out that the BDA and the KHB acquire land at a lower price and construct houses at lower cost. The lower cost of housing units will naturally be lower and private developers cannot sell flats at the cost at which the BDA and the KHB sell their
units.

Private developers’ business is likely to be affected. It is said that the BDA’s allotments have
benefited the middlemen and speculators at the cost of farmers and private developers, and it is not likely to change this time as well. Many plots allotted by the BDA continue to remain
vacant.

Housing consultants argued that BDA’s plan to allot three-bedroom houses at Rs 23 lakh and
Rs 27 lakh, whereas private developers charge more than Rs 50 lakh for a three-bedroom
house in the city would naturally reduce the demand for private housing complexes.

Moreover, people who buy flats from government agencies can be secure as they will not
face any title disputes. Therefore, most of the people would prefer to buy flats from the BDA
even if the quality of construction would not be as good as that of private developers, they
said.

Bangalore Residential Report, published by a private realty agency, showed 20,600 housing
units were consumed in the city in 2011 and around 55,000 housing units were still available.

On an average, Bangalore consumed around 25,000 housing units annually and a majority
of them were low-cost units. If more than 9,000 units were made available in the market by
government agencies, private builders would be greatly affected.

Houses to benefit people, says BDA

Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) Commissioner T Sham Bhatt said the BDA’s low
cost houses will benefit the people of lower income in the City of Bangalore.

The BDA has invited applications for allotting 4,388 single-bedroom flats, 1,170 two-
bedroom flats and 632 three-bedroom flats at different places in the city and will issue
applications from March 25.

The BDA has reserved 2,194 single-bedroom flats from the total 4,388 units under different
categories. The KHB has proposed to construct over 3,000 low-cost housing units in
Suryanagar II Phase, Yelahanka, Devenahalli and Kengeri.