Court ruling leaves BDA hard-pressed for land

With lesser number of sites available, many allottees fear losing sites

The controversy surrounding the Arkavathy Layout refuses to die with the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) announcing that only 14,000 sites were available for the allottees and the farmers from the 16 villages where land had been acquired for the layout in 2003.

Tuesday’s High Court ruling has forced BDA to provide developed land to farmers who parted with their land, provided they return the compensation money. 

Forced to re-draw the layout plan after a series of denotifications and land acquisition problems, BDA claims to have lost nearly 50 per cent of the land over the past nine years. The actual notified size of the layout at the time of its conception was 2,750 acres. 

BDA claims to have acquired only 1,200 acres as owners of the other 1,550 acres have not consented to part with their land.

Now, after considerable delay, BDA claims that it has only 14,000 sites as compared to the 25,000 sites originally planned. The shortfall poses a challenge to BDA, which has to fulfil the demands of a huge number of site aspirants.

The 8,813 site allottees fear that the allotments will be cancelled. BDA officials said only those who had never been allotted sites at the layout “officially”, would be denied sites.

“As per our estimates, only 4,000 sites will be given to farmers as compensation.
We will still have 10,000 sites for the allottees. We do not see any reason why the allottees should be denied sites,” said a BDA official. Following the High Court ruling, other BDA officials claimed, they would add only 120 more sites (of dimension 40 x60) to be given to those who lost their land.

Many allottees are concerned that nearly 30 per cent of the allotted sites may be cancelled. Sanjay Marlecha, secretary of the Arkavathy Layout Allottees Association, said the allottees feared losing sites.