2 DECCAN HERALD B Thursday, May 7, 2015
Metro
IsroHQsitting onbreached lakeTerrain trouble: Saga over demolitions on lake beds continues as residents struggle
Prashanth G N
BENGALURU: Sixty-onebreached lakes have beenhanded over to public insti-tutions for “public purpose”in Bengaluru since the latechief minister RamakrishnaHegde’s rule from 1983-84.
And on one of such lakes sitsthe Indian Space Research Or-ganisation (Isro) headquarters,Antariksh Bhavan, at Sanjay-nagar, RMV Extension, NorthBengaluru.
Isro was looking for land inthe early 1980s for its head-quarters and one among thesites shown to it was the pres-ent piece of land, which was alake, V Balasubramanian, for-mer additional chief secretary,revealed to Deccan Herald.
Balasubramanian, who wasthe chief secretary to Hegde,recalled how the lake washanded over to Isro.
“I happened to be the chiefsecretaryunderMrHegde,andformer chief election commis-sioner T N Seshan was the joint
secretary in the Space depart-ment. Those days, people werepowerful and he used to callme saying, ‘Subramanian, I’mthe joint secretary calling fromthe Space department; whydon’t you help us with land forIsro?’Eventually, Seshan man-aged to prevail over the gov-ernment to part with land.
But what we had then werelakes. After the government’spermission, the lake wasbreached and the land washandedovertoIsroforitshead-quarters. This meant that the
lake itself was handed over toIsro. Mind you, technically, it isnot an encroachment becausethegovernment itselfbreachedthe lake and handed it over toIsro,” Balasubramanian said.
But the former top officialhastened to add: “But if you askme whether Isro is sitting on alake today, it is. There was alake then. This was in 1984. Allin all, 61 breached lakes havebeen handed over since thento a variety of public institu-tions for public purpose. Whatwas given to Isro was also for
public purpose. Likewise, thecity railway station today, thebus stand, the hockey and foot-ball stadiums, the Kanteeravastadium,allof thesearelocatedon lakes.
Theywereallbreachedlakes- therewere so manylakes thenthat you had to go in for breachand then get land and build onthem.”
“But of course, there arelakes which have been handedover for private activities, too,”Balasubramainan said. “TheChallaghatta lake has been
handed over to the Golf Asso-ciation. There are people whoknow how these things hap-pened. What is a public and aprivate purpose has to be un-derstood clearly.
But the overall conclusion Iam drawing from the recentactivity is that a good numberof lakes in the City have beenbreached after a public pur-pose has been defined. Butbreached lakes by governmentand given away for other pur-poses also.”DH News Service
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From lakes to layouts
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1. Marenahalli Lake Marenahalli Layout2. Sarakki Agrahara Lake/ JP Nagar 4th Phase
Doresanipalya3. Chinnagara Lake Ejipura4. Challaghatta Lake Karnataka Golf Association5. Domlur Lake Domlur Second Stage6. Siddapura Lake Siddapura/Jayanagar 1st Block7. Geddalahalli Lake RMV 2nd Stage, 1st Block8. Nagashettihalli Lake RMV 2nd Stage, 2nd Block9. Kadirenahalli Lake Banashankari 2nd Stage10. Tyagarajanagar Lake Tyagarajanagar11. Tumkur Lake Mysore Lamps12. Ramshetty Palya Kere Milk Colony (Playground)13. Agasana Lake Gayathri Devi Park14. Ketamaranahalli Lake Rajajinagar
(Mahalakshmipuram)15. Gangashetty Lake Minerva Mills & Open ground16. Jakraya Lake Krishna Flour Mills17. Dharmambudhi Lake Kempegowda Bus Terminal18. Agarahara Hosakere Cheluvadipalya19. Kalasipalya Lake Kalasipalya20. Sampangi Lake Kanteerava Stadium21. Shule Tank Ashok Nagar, Football Stadium22. Akkitimmanahalli Tank Sai Hockey Stadium23. Sunkal Tank KSRTC Regional workshop24. Koramangala Lake National Dairy Research
Institute25. Kodihalli Lake New Tippasandra/
Government Buildings26. Hosakere Residential Railway Stockyard27. Sonnenehalli Lake Austin Town (RES Colony)28. Gokula Tank Mathikere29. Vidyaranyapura lake Vidyaranayapura/(Jalahalli East)30. Kadugondanahalli Lake Kadugondanahalli31. Hennur Lake Nagavara (HBR Layout)32. Banaswadi Lake Subbayapalya Extension33. Chennasandra Lake Pulla Reddy Layout34. Vijinapura Lake (Kotturu) Rajarajeshwari Layout35. Murugeshpalya Lake Murugeshpalya36. Parangipalya Lake HSR Layout37. Mestriplaya Lake Mestriplaya (Open Ground)38. Timberyard Lake Timberyard Layout39. Gangodanhalli Lake Gangodanhalli40. Vijayanagar Chord Road Lake Vijayanagar41. Oddarapalaya Lake Rajajinagar (Industrial Area)42. Saneguruvanahalli Lake Shivanahalli (Play Ground)/
KSPCB Buildings43. Kurubarahalli Lake Basaveshwaranagar Layout
List of breached lakes and the purposes for which thesebreached lakes were given
Subhash Chandra N S
BENGALURU: While the gov-ernment is contemplating toregularise BDA layouts on‘dead lakes,’ citing the Lak-shman Rau committee re-port, a look into the reportshows no such recommen-dation was made by thecommittee.
The government is takingrefuge under the 1986 report,saying that it will bring in a lawto regularise the layouts on‘dead lakes’. But, the reportdoes not even mention about‘dead lakes’. Contrary to theState’s stance, the committeehas mentioned about 46 dis-used lakes, to be converted astree parks.
The committee formed tostudy the status of lakes hasmentioned that the City had 81live tanks, of which 46 were indisuse. The report says, “Outof these, 10 are utilised by the
Horticulture department, theBangalore City Corporation(BCC) and BDA. The commit-tee reviewed the details of thedisused tanks. These tanksshould be developed into treeparks immediately”.
Thereport citestheexampleof Srinivagilu lake (at Kora-mangala), where the commit-tee, during its visit, found thatBDA was developing a layout.
“Nolayoutshouldbeallowedto be formed in the tank bedarea either by BDA or by anyother body. BDA should nottake up formation of sites intankbedareaas in Srinivagilu,”
the report says.Mentioning about the trend
adopted by the BDA - breachthe tanks, dry them up andutilise the land to form a layoutin the conurbation area (areaproposedtobemerged intothethenBCC), thecommitteesaid,“In the green belt area, thereare 262 tanks. All are live tanksand cannot be breached. Theyshould be continued as waterbodies for obvious reasons”.
It had also recommended toprevent discharge of effluentsand industrial waste into thelakes. The report had said thatthe BDA and other agencies
should immediately removeencroachments on tank beds.
‘BDA responsible’S G Neginhal, the then DCF,Green belt division, and one ofthe 11 members of the Raucommittee, has blamed theBDA for the present scenario.Despite stating that the lake ar-eas should be preserved andconverted into tree park, theywentaheadandformedthelay-out illegally. He said BDAshould be penalised for this.
The report mentions abouthow some of the lakes wereusedfordevelopment purpose.Nagashettyhalli and Kodihallilakes were given to ISRO,Kadugondanahalli and Chal-laghatta lakes were given toAmbedkar Medical CollegeandKSTDCrespectively.Threelakes Geddalahalli, Karisandraand Kadirenahalli lakes wereconverted into sites by BDA.DH News Service
Citing Rau panel report, govtmay be barking up wrong tree
BENGALURU: K Subramani-am, a senior citizen in Ba-naswadi, suffered a heart at-tack in January this year. Thisafter being served a notice tovacate the house.
The notice served on this 83-year-old asked him to vacatethehousethathehadbuiltwithhard earned money, on a siteallotted by the Bangalore De-velopment Authority (BDA).Following the heart attack,Subramaniam had to be hos-pitalised for treatment.
Subramaniam told DeccanHerald on Wednesday that hewas still feeling threatened,with no written assurance giv-en to them so far by the author-ities. The senior citizen saidthat he had none but his 71-year-old wife, Mokshalakshmi,in his family. The woman saidthat the duo had invested allthe money they had on theBDA land.
“We have no children and it
Notice to vacate house shatterslives of forlorn couple
Govtorderleaves5,000workersinquandaryBENGALURU: More than5,000 employees of 35 indus-trial undertakings in Kadugodiplantation stand to lose theirjobswiththeStategovernmentissuing orders on April 23 tore-acquire the 711 acres of landfortheForest department.Theorder directs Bengaluru EastTaluk tahsildar to mutate theland in the name of Govern-ment Forest Department.
Crying hoarse over the or-ders, the Federation of Kar-nataka Chapter of Commerceand Industry (FKCCI), theKadugodi Industrial Associa-tion,Whitefield Industrial As-sociation and Whitefield AreaCommerce and Industries As-sociation(WACIA) on Wednes-day claimed that the order ofthe government was illegal.
Addressing a press meet,FKCCIpresidentSSampathra-man said that the Forest de-partment had handed over theland to the Revenue depart-ment and later gave it to theKarnatakaIndustrialAreasDe-velopment Board (KIADB).The Board developed the landand invited applications fromprospective industrialists wayback in the early seventies.
“ The government cannotdrive us out now. Its gross in-justice. The High Court hasheld that the land under ques-tion is not a forest land,” hesaid.
He added that since an ap-peal of the Forest departmentwas pending in the High Court,any action by any governmentdepartment would be in con-travention of the court’s Order.
He said that ever since gov-ernment issued orders for re-acquiring the land, the indus-trialists, workers and vendorswereinpanic.“Undertheseun-settling circumstances, whowould want to come here andinvest money”, he said.
Kishore Govinde, Presidentof Kadugodi Industrial Associ-ation, said that the land ownedby the industries were the oneallottedbytheKIADBasindus-trial plots. The total area ofland allotted by KIADB is 430acres.DH News Service
‘Whytreatuslikecriminalsfornofaultofours?BENGALURU: There is just onequestioninthemindsoftheBa-naswadi residents, with theirfuture seeming uncertain.
“Why treat us like criminalsfor no fault of ours?”
This question by Rajashekar,a resident, perhaps sums upthe predicament of the hun-dreds of house owners in thearea. Rajashekar wants toknow how sites were allottedto the people if they were ille-gal, that too in a layout formedby the BDA. “There are over220 sites on which 110 houseshave already been built. We allthought having BDA sites wasa safe option. But in January,we were all served notices andwere told that criminal pro-ceedings would be initiated ifwe fail to vacate,” he said.
The residents here do notknow whether their propertieswould survive. With no writtenassurance of any sort, they areshuttlingfromonegovernmentoffice to another, hoping forsome assurance.
Uncertain futureDr Rajini Agarwal, a retiredprofessor, said that everyminute, the residents lived un-der the fear that their buildingswould be demolished. Thisanxious senior citizen said,“Each time we hear the soundof an earthmover, we rush outof our houses. We do not knowif it will be our turn next”.
Rajini resides in Banaswadialong with her husband, a re-tiredofficialofthedefencemin-istry.“Weareallretiredpeople.If they now ask us to vacate theplace, where do we go? It tookus a lot of savings from 15 yearsto build the house,” she said.
The residents said that theyhadnotreceivedanyformal let-ters. “They had pasted noticeson all our houses,” said FelciaVaz, another BDA allottee.
Vaz shifted base from Goa toBengaluruwithherfamily.“Wechose to stay here as it is con-venient for my daughters whoare studying. Now, we are noteven able to live in peace. Re-cent developments have left uswith a sense of insecurity,” shesaid.DH News Service
is just the two of us living here.My husband worked in the ITI.We now have no proper sourceof income,” she said.
Mokshalakshmi said thatthey spend close to Rs 3,000 amonth only on their medica-tion and manage to meet the
expenses through earningsfrom LIC and post officeschemes.
“We are staying here fornearly 20 years now. All of asudden if we are asked to va-cate the place, where do wego?” Mokshalakshmi said,adding that they could not af-ford another property at thisage. “We built this house in1992. It took us years for com-pletion. We wanted to have ahouse of our own so that we donot have to spend money onrent,”she said. The elderly cou-ple were given a different siteinitially. Later, the officials -who were of the belief that thisplot would be easier to ap-proach from the main road -allotted this to them.
“We had a sense of securitywhenweweregivenaBDAsite.Now, we live in fear and do notknow what will happen to us,”said Subramaniam.DH News Service
K Subramaniam and his wife Mokshalakshmi. DHPHOTO
AsilentprayerthattheirhouseisnotthenextundertheaxeBENGALURU: Anxious resi-dents and owners of commer-cial complexes looked on as thedemolition drive by the Rev-enue department continued atBanaswadi on Wednesday.
While a few stood to seetheir commercial structuresbeing reduced to debris, a fewothers kept their fingerscrossed in the hope that theirhouses would not be the nextones to be demolished.
With no written assuranceby the officials that the houseswould not be demolished, resi-dents -whohavehouses onrev-enue and Bangalore Develop-
ment Authority land - are onlyhopeful that they would bespared.
Julie Dominic was seenstanding at the demolition spotall day long. The commercialcomplex that was demolishedon Wednesday is adjacent toher house. The woman waspraying that her house is notrazed, after the demolition ofthe commercial complex.
“I am here, standing on theroad, for three days now. Weare not sure what will happento our house. Also, we do notknow if our building will bedamaged in the process ofbringing down the neighbour-ing one,” Julie said.
Sagai Mary is running frompillar to post to get help. Shedoesnotknowifshehastohelpher ailing brother or shift fur-niture from her house. Shewants to protect the furnitureas her house has suffered dam-ages due to the impact of thedemolitionoftheneighbouringcommercial complex.
“My brother is down withfever. We are all staying in arelative’s house for now. Wehaverequestedourneighboursto help us by keeping our fur-niture and a few other items intheir houses for the time be-ing,” she said. “Some of us didnot even get a notice. We onlyhave oral assurance from theDC that they would see whatbest can be done if our housessuffer any damage. BJP leaderSuresh Kumar has assured ushelp,” Mary said.DH News Service
Demolitiondrive:CMreassuresBDAallotteesBENGALURU, DHNS: ChiefMinister Siddaramaiah has as-sured the BDA site allotteesthathewouldspeaktotheBDAofficials about the eviction no-tice served to them.
Speaking to residents aftera close door meeting at his res-idence on Kumara KrupaRoad, he said, “I will talk toBDA officials regarding this.”
Tuesday evening saw over50 residents of Banaswadistanding in front of the chiefminister’s residence. The BDAsite allottees had gatheredthere to submit a memoran-dum requesting him to takeback the notice and not demol-ish the structures constructedon BDA sites. Shyam Sundar,aresidentwhometSiddarama-iah, said, “All we need is an as-surancefromthechiefministerthat the houses constructed onBDA sites will not be demol-ished by the authorities.”
Sundar explained that in the220 sites that were developed,houses have been built on 120sites. “There are so many peo-ple living in the place for over20 to 25 years now. Where arewe all supposed to go?” hegrieved.
SAGAI MARY: Some ofus did not even get anotice. We only haveoral assurance fromthe DC that they wouldsee what best can bedone if our housessuffer any damage.BJP leader SureshKumar has assured ushelp.
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BENGALURU,DHNS: WhiletheDollars Colony residents in JPNagarhaveassertedtheirright-ful ownership over the proper-ties in the locality, district offi-cials have claimed that theyhave till date not handed overtheDollarsColonylandtoBDAat all.
In fact, going ahead withtheirplans,noticeswouldshort-ly be issued to the residents ofthis area. The tahsildar, whohasbeensoughttoissuetheno-tices, is in the process of draft-ing them. It is likely to be readyover the next to days, officialstold Deccan Herald.
Meanwhile, local residentshave rubbished all reports ofDollars Colony beingillegal.“This is a 100 percent le-gal colony. We have all the doc-umentsinplace.Weareunnec-essarilybeingpaintedashavingencroached on the land,” saidKV Bhat, who represents theResidents’WelfareAssociationof Dollars Colony, JP Nagar.Theresidents'assertionoftheirownership is based on severalgovernment documents,wherein the BDA has obtainedthe approval of the State gov-ernment to convert the landintoaresidential layout.Copiesof the documents are with thisnewspaper.
The recordsThe documents available infavour of the Dollars Colony
Claims, counterclaims galore overownership of Dollars Colony land
residents are that of the Stategovernmentapprovingthelandto be converted into a residen-tial layout. One such approvalhas been issued on June 9,1994. On behalf of none otherthan the Governor of the statehimself, thisgovernmentorderwas issued by the then undersecretary to the government,Housing and Town PlanningDepartment. The governmentorderstatesthatasperthemapsent by the BDA, the govern-menthasagreedtoconvertsur-
vey number 167 of Bilekahallivillage (which measures 56acres and 34 guntas), from“ParkandOpenSpaces”tores-idential layout.
The problem of the Colonybeing illegal has arisen out ofthe Revenue department’sclaims that they have not giventhe land to the BDA in the firstplace and any further assent bythe government to convert theland to residential layout doesnot hold good on this account.As per entries in the RTC doc-
ument (Record of Rights, Ten-ancyandCrops), thelandisstillasLingannanaKereitself.“Theownership lies with the Rev-enue department. We are thecustodian of the land. We willseek a report on this by BDA,”a top official said.
Accordingtosources,districtauthoritieshavealsodecidedtotake possession of civic ameni-ties sites, playgrounds andparks in the locality lest theBDA take it over and convert itinto layouts.
A view of Dollars Colony in JP Nagar. DH PHOTO
BENGALURU, DHNS: Aftercoming into scanner over allot-ment of sites to a few VIPs onLinganahalli lakebedinDollarsColony, the Bangalore Devel-opment Authority (BDA) hasstarted looking out for all doc-uments pertaining to the casefrom 1971.
Blaming the previous gov-ernments and the officials forthe sorry mess, the BDA offi-cials have said that the layoutwas formed on the lake follow-ing an executive order for thesame. In a meeting, the BDAofficials have tried to maketheir stand clear to the DC andthe upalokayukta. Not satisfiedby the explanations providedby the BDA, the upalokayuktaand the DC have sought the of-ficials of the development au-thority to come up documentsto substantiate their claims.
They have also asked theBDA to give a detailed accountof all other layouts which wereformed on lakes and details ofother layouts of how they wereformed among others.
For this, the BDA has soughta week’s time to prepare a de-tailed report pertaining to Lin-ganahalli and other layouts.Thereportwould besubmittedtotheDCandtheupalokayuka-ta for execution, a BDA officialtold Deccan Herald.
BDA had formed the DollarsColony and had notified thehomes as per the BDA LandAcquisition Act Rules. Prelim-inary notification for the for-mation of the layout was issuedin 1986 and a final notificationon the same was done in 1995.But the layout was formed in1988, the BDA official said.
According to the official,
“The then government in 1986had decided to hand over thelake bed of Linganahalli, whichbelonged to the Minor Irriga-tion department, to BDA forlayout formation. This decisionwas taken and executedthrough an executive order.But thelakewas never officiallyhanded over to the BDA for theformation of the layout and theland was never officially ac-quiredforthelayoutformation.But as per the Lakshman RauCommittee Report, since thelayouthasalreadybeenformedand people are residing, itshould be excluded from thetank bed list. If we go by char-acteristics and definitions thanhalf of Bengaluru is residing onlakes and lake beds. But allthese properties have been no-tified and formed as layouts.So,shouldwedemolishhalf theCity? It is now for the DC andgovernment to decide.”
BDA commissioner T ShamBhat refused to comment onthe issue saying that he wouldonly speak to the DC and theupalokayukta on the matter.
BDA seeks a week’stime for report onLinganahalli lake
BDA OFFICIAL: “Thethen government in1986 had decided tohand over the lake bedof Linganahalli, whichbelonged to the MinorIrrigation department,to BDA for layoutformation. Thisdecision was taken andexecuted through anexecutive order.
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n Government plans to regularise layouts on ‘deadlakes’, through legislation
n Report talks of disused lakes, saying they should beturned into tree parks
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Conflicting interpretation
