80 ft road & a lone fighter

Some highly placed officials in the BBMP,  land mafia and traders are desperate that Shanti Ganesh, a resident of Sanjaynagar be evicted from the area as she has all the details of wrongdoing in the expansion of the 80 feet road.

A gritty woman is fighting for her life and property, with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike resorting to creating fake documents and fudging figures to acquire her property for the expansion of the 80-feet road in Sanjaynagar, north Bengaluru.

Shanti Ganesh has withstood abuse, harassment and threats to her life to safeguard her home, husband, father and daughters.

The story is about one portion of the stretch at 80-feet road on Sanjaynagar Main Road whose alignment has been changed to favour a few commercial establishments. It took six long years for Shanti, who lost a portion of her property, to get a reply to her 20 applications under the Right to Information Act (RTI) and to discover that the acquisition of land was done without any notice and that the alignment was also changed illegally. The first half of the widening of the road was taken up by the BDA.

The saga started in 2009 when owners of 23 properties were served notice that portions of their property would be acquired for expansion of a 132-metre stretch of the 80-feet road. BBMP engineers, who visited the site, were in a hurry to widen the 132-metre stretch the BDA had not completed. “The engineers told me that many families had agreed to part with portions of their property for the road expansion. But I was not given any notice. The engineers who visited my house told me that my property would not to be acquired,” Shanti told Deccan Herald.

However, on May 20, 2009, all of a sudden, the BBMP officials, along with some strangers, came and started breaking my building. “It started raining heavily and water entered our house . My family and I were literally on the road. They broke everything and we were helpless. Some politically connected persons threatened me saying I was the only one not taking the compensation. I kept asking the people to show me the plan, but they didn’t care and the demolition went on. We were left with half a house, with the portion facing the road wide open. At one stage, people started using that portion as an urinal,” she said.

The fight begins
In June 2009, Shanti filed a complaint with the Lokayukta and the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC). The BBMP officials swung into action and produced a consent letter for acquisition of Shanti’s property signed by her husband Ganesh. “I fought with my husband over the issue. But later, when I saw the documents, I realised that the signature was forged. The signature was in Kannada. But we don’t know to read or write Kannada... So, who signed the paper? We informed the Lokayukta about it and he immediately ordered a spot inspection, which revealed that there was no plan, no sketch, no notice, no notification and the engineers had no documents at all,” she said.

After Shanti’s complaint, the BBMP produced 10 maps before the authorities. Shanti found that these sketches had different measurements for 22 other properties, but the measurement of her property remained the same. The maps changed  in 2008, 2009 and then in 2014. In 2009 and 2010, the BBMP gave sketches with no date. Interestingly, Shanti found that nowhere on the 132-metre stretch the road would be 80 feet. “With each measurement, the house would still not come under acquisition. There was no plan with the BBMP to show. Would I give my house for somebody else parking their vehicles? Is it for private purpose or public purpose? And public purpose should be an honest one. I just decided to go after the authorities to get justice,” Shanti said.

HC rapped BBMP
Even as the inquiry into her complaint with the KSHRC and the Lokayukta was underway, Shanti moved the High Court in 2012 and a direction was issued to the BBMP to restore the portion of her building demolished illegally by the Palike.

Despite the High Court order, the Palike failed to restore the building and Shanti had to move the court again with a contempt petition. The BBMP filed an undertaking stating that it would pay Rs 8 lakh towards restoration of the building. But later, it raised an objection to restoring the building and Shanti filed a complaint with Upa Lokayukta, Justice Subhash B Adi.

“I was not allowed to restore my building for eight months despite a court order in my favour. They (BBMP) started projecting me as anti-development. I started realising that the BBMP engineers’ faults in allowing unauthorised buildings on the other side of the road will surface, if a detailed investigation was taken up,” she said.

In 2013, Lokayukta Justice Y Bhaskar Rao sent a report under Section 12 (3) of the Lokayukta Act recommending disciplinary action against five officials of the BBMP. The Lokayukta enquiry revealed that two BBMP engineers, Y A Muniraju and H P Ramesh, were responsible for the demolition of the house. However, the engineers stated that it was done under the guidance of the then additional commissioner Srirama Reddy, the then chief engineer B T Ramesh and executive engineer Prakash Kumar. When these senior officials did not submit any reply, the Lokayukta recommended disciplinary action against all of them.

Commissioner not aware
The report was sent to the competent authority on October 2013. However, till now, no action has been taken on the report. “I am not aware of the report against officials in this case. I have ordered for a re-survey of the stretch of the road and I can comment only after the joint survey by the BBMP and BDA,” BBMP commissioner M Lakshminarayana said.

Shanti said unknown people were threatening her. “They abused me publicly. In a meeting, a man was saying all kinds of things against me without knowing I was sitting there. People sitting next to me told me how he was raving and ranting against me. I was fighting for what we had built with all our life’s savings. Can you imagine what safety issues my daughters, husband and father have faced? I fear that if I carry on like this, fighting for justice, they may even kill me.”

Shanti has all the details of the violations said to be committed by commercial establishments on the opposite side of the road, but she fears to take the next step. “If I start with the commercial establishments, it will come to a point where they have to shut down. They just want me out of the area because I know all the details and they fear that if I open up, their dealings with 22 properties and a row of shops will be revealed. To cover up their follies, they are doing anything and everything to get me out.”

Shanti also points out a case wherein a resident accepted compensation even though his house was not acquired for road expansion.

“The resident’s house might not have been taken for road expansion and yet he was paid compensation. The question is, why did the officials give it and why did the resident receive it? Clearly, to make a point that I am the only one not accepting compensation, isn’t it? If they could prove me wrong, somehow they know they would save themselves.”