Over a period of time, thousands of acres of lake beds and government land in the city have been subjected to rampant encroachment. Despite various reports pointing out this menace, little has been done to revive them. Since scores of realtors and politicians have been a party to the encroachment of land, they have ensured that the Lake Development Authority (LDA) — which acts on these reports — remains a toothless agency.
Since 2006, three state-appointed committees — Task Force Committee, A.T. Ramaswamy Committee and Koliwad Committee have submitted their voluminous reports on the encroachment of lakhs of acres of government land and pristine lakes.
The Result: The same government has failed to recover even an inch of land, making a mockery of its own committees and its reports. The Lake Conservation Development Authority (LCDC) has turned into a toothless agency with no powers to initiate any action against land grabbers.
Read: Guest column: ‘Health of Bengalureans depends on lakes, parks’
V. Balasubramanian, Chairman, Task Force for Recovery of Public Lands, and freedom fighter H. S. Doreswamy, feel that forming committees is just a delaying tactic by the government, as several politicians across every party are heavily implicated. Their view is — how can we expect anyone to punish themselves? It’s just unheard of!
Mr. Balasubramanian is of the view, “If the government is firm on initiating any action against land sharks and land squatters, three crucial steps need to be taken. First, the Lake Conservation Development Authority (LCDA), should be constituted as suggested by the Task Force Committee. Second, a special court should be set up with all the necessary infrastructure to deal with land grabbers sternly. Finally, we are in need of a High Court Empowered Committee, answerable exclusively to the High Court. As far as empowering the LCDA is concerned, the government has been just dragging its feet for the last four years, trying to frame rules.”
“The Act stipulates rigorous punishment and penalties against land grabbers. A guilty person can be imprisoned for up to three years. Unfortunately, the government has shown a lackadaisical attitude, just to save the skin of their netas,” says Mr. Balasubramanian.
“The Karnataka Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 2011, has provision for constituting a special court to try cases of land grabbing. The court has both — a civil and criminal jurisdiction — to complete trials in about six months. Once the rules are framed, they empower the authorities to recover the encroached land or its market value, in a situation where the land cannot be recovered. Sadly, the secretaries, government officials and judges have still not been appointed. It is evident by the government’s attitude that it is shielding land grabbers and realtors.” He strongly feels that based on the Public Interest Litigation filed by social activist S. R. Hiremath, a High Court Empowered Committee (along the lines of the Central Empowered Committee to probe mining issues) should be set up by the Supreme Court. The committee will impartially assist the court in initiating decisive action.
City’s water bodies being killed by rampant construction
From once being popularly called the land of a thousand tanks, the city has turned into a land of a thousand sewage tanks,. Uncontrolled constructions around lake areas and excessive dumping of construction debris have killed the water bodies in the city, while the government too has willfully contributed to massive encroachments.
Experts say that these lands, especially the lake beds, must be revived and should be used for what they were originally designated. Former KSPCB, Chairman Vaman Acharya, said, “If the survey shows that thousands of acres of lake areas are now encroached upon, then the government must facilitate rain water harvesting in these areas and recharge the ground water. “Similarly, in recovered forest areas and ‘gomaala’ land, the focus must be on developing urban forests and public parks.”
Mr. Acharya went on to cite the examples of Majestic and Seshadripuram, which were once lake areas too, and stressed that not all recovered land could be revamped and utilized for their original purpose. However, he suggested that a subordinate committee to the Koliwad committee must be formed in order to process the survey report and suggest to the government which land should be used for public use and what should be utilized for developing infrastructure.
“Reusing the recovered land needs a judicial approach and the government must think rationally instead of adopting a radical approach. Water bodies must get their due importance before the state government decides to allot the land for any other public purposes,” he stressed.
Activist and environmentalist Vinay Sreenivas too emphasized that lake rejuvenation must be the top priority of the state government, and in lands which cannot be used for other purposes, houses for the urban poor should be constructed.
“The state government’s top priority must be to revive the lakes. Also, since the government has done very little to provide housing facilities for the urban poor, the land must be utilized for accommodating the one lakh homeless population in the city. Apart from this, the need of the hour is more playgrounds. Most of the land allotted for playgrounds has been converted into parks. It’s time the government set up playgrounds,” he said.
What the reports say
- The AT Ramaswamy Committee says one-third of government land in the city is encroached upon – which means 41,303 acres, worth Rs 1.03 lakh crore
- The Balasubramanium Committee Task Force Committee says over 11 lakh acres of government and public lands are encroached upon, of which over 4,700 acres have been recovered. The value of 11 lakh acres is approximately Rs 1,95,000 crores
- The Koliwad Committee puts it at over 10,000 acres of land land worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore
