Bangalore Development Authority acting like real estate agency: Karnataka high court

The Karnataka high court on Monday directed the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) to place all information regarding ongoing land acquisitions and projects under progress in Bangalore.

A batch of petitions from those, whose lands have been sought to be acquired for the Nadaprabhu Kempe Gowda Layout, had come up for hearing before justice DV Shylendra Kumar.

The petitioners had contended that there was a selective process of notification and denotification to be followed and the government was supposed to leave some important places like nurseries, religious places and high-tech centres, which it had not done.

The BDA had issued preliminary notification on May 21, 2008, seeking to acquire 4,814 acre and a final notification on February 18, 2010 with regard to 4,043.27 acre. The project envisages distribution of 54,800 sites.

Justice Kumar pulled up the BDA for embarking upon new projects without bothering much about the completion of projects already being initiated. “You have not completed some projects for which you had acquired lands some years ago. Now you are embarking on this mega Kempe Gowda Layout. You have to first complete the projects on-hand and then initiate the new ones,” he said.

“What the BDA is following is an outdated concept of development. Huge and gigantic projects are difficult to manage. The land acquisitions and big projects are like our government. Nobody can understand the way it functions. The result: BDA acquisitions are money-spinning exercise. BDA is more of a real estate development (agency),” the judge said.

At the request of the petitioners, justice Kumar directed the BDA to submit the proposal leading to issuing of preliminary notification for acquiring 4,814 acres of land for the Layout. Justice Kumar also directed the civic agency to submit details of all the ongoing projects and the land acquired for different purposes by the BDA during the next hearing on February 8.

Justice Kumar also asked the BDA about the present status of all the ongoing projects and the details of the land acquired for the projects, including the surplus land acquired for Sir M Vishveshwaraya Layout and the controversial Arkavathy Layout.