Bengaluru: Little headway in clearing encroachments by mafia

BENGALURU: Following protests led by freedom fighter H.S. Doreswamy and former MLA A. T. Ramaswamy, the district urban authorities have recovered around 18 thousand acres of government land from land sharks and land grabbers. They have reached just above halfway mark as over 16 thousand acres of government land still need to be cleared of encroachments.

The Bengaluru Urban district has 1,22,918 acres of government land under its jurisdiction and according to joint house committee on encroachment, headed by A T Ramaswamy, 34,111 acres have been encroached upon by land sharks. Although the recovery process was initiated in 2006-07 the progress has been slow. However, the process gained momentum in 2014, after Doreswamy and Ramaswamy staged a dharna in front of Town hall for nearly 50 days.

Between 2006 and August, 2015 as many as 17,999 acres of land have been recovered. However sources said that a major chunk of land recovered, belonged to the poor and a few builders. The urban administration has made little headway in reclaiming the land that under the possession of mafia and major builders, who enjoy political clout. The land that was reclaimed at tank beds in Sarakki, Allalasandra and Banaswadi was encroached mainly by the poor, sources added.

In a setback to the urban administration, some builders who enjoyed clout obtained stay from court, while the poor could not fight it out and had to gave in. Though it was alleged that even BDA had formed some of its layouts by encroaching upon water bodies, the urban administration has not demolished them. The Dollar’s Colony, built on Lingannana kere on Bannerghatta road, too did not face the axe, sources point out.

While some of the recovered land has been fenced, the remaining has been transferred to government departments such as BBMP, BDA, Forest and Irrigation, depending upon the ownership. The authorities were ruthless in recovering land granted in violation of land grants rules and layouts formed on government land.

The urban administration now has to recover 16,112 acres of government land, while some portion have been put to public benefit. Based on the government and court’s direction the authorities will move to recover encroached land.