The dream of owning a site in the city has just got tougher as yet another layout of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) — K. Shivarama Karanth Layout — bites the dust.
While 60,000 eligible applicants are waiting for BDA sites, it has been a decade since BDA developed any new layout. Though the last site allotments were made in Arkavathy Layout, the layout has turned a quagmire and a judicial inquiry is under way. Visvesvaraya Layout was the last ‘successful’ layout.
BDA in 2007 announced five new layouts: Nadaprabhu Kempe Gowda, Shivaram Karanth, S. Nijalingappa, K.C. Reddy and Devaraj Urs Layouts with an aim to develop 1.76 lakh sites. However, BDA’s efforts were derailed as land acquisition ran into a quagmire of litigations. The sky-rocketing land prices made land losers to fight acquisition. In most cases, the hapless land losers were exploited by realtors in collusion with BDA officials, allege activists.
A BDA land acquisition official acknowledged that land sharks derailed Arkavathy Layout. “In most cases, realtors have taken GPA of land parcels from farmers and they are the ones litigating with BDA thereby acquiring prime real estate at throw away prices,” he said.
Legal hassles The modus operandi of land sharks was to question the acquisition notification and drag BDA into a long drawn legal battle. All the three layouts, now in a legal quagmire, have thousands of litigations questioning land acquisition.
A senior BDA official said litigations over land acquisition has chained down BDA and has ensured that they are not able to repeat the success of Visvesvaraya Layout as all three layouts formed after that have been derailed because of legal hassles.
There were more than 6,000 legal petitions against acquisition for Arkavathy Layout. And, after a six-year legal battle, the Supreme Court upheld guidelines framed by the High Court to leave out land notified for acquisition. BDA recently published a re-modified scheme leaving out more than 500 acres.
There were 7,500 litigations with regard to the Nadaprabhu Kempe Gowda Layout and 12,000 litigations in connection with K. Shivaram Karanth Layout. The High Court set aside land acquisition for both the layouts.
BDA may not appeal against HC order on land acquisition
Our Staff Reporter reports:
Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is unlikely to appeal against the Karnataka High Court order passed on Wednesday that held that the preliminary notification of 3,546 acres for K. Shivaram Karanth Layout has lapsed.
Sources say the preliminary notification was deliberately allowed to lapse as the incumbent government was against going ahead with the layout plan. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, as the Opposition leader then had sided with land losers and had, in a public statement in 2013, said his government would drop the proposal to develop a layout and return land to farmers.
