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Realtors' apex body asks govt to go by CDP to tag SWD encroachments

CREDAI says master plan final as it has legislative nod; village map 'outdated'
Last Updated 26 August 2016, 20:59 IST

The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) on Friday urged the state government to follow the statutorily approved Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) of 2005 to identify encroachments on stormwater drains and not rely on the century-old village survey map.

Experts at ‘Impact of Brand Bengaluru’, a brainstorming session organised in the wake of the demolition drive and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ruling of May 6, 2016, reiterated that the government must go by the CDP.

T G Sitharam, chairman, Center for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and Urban Planning (CiSTUP), Indian Institute of Science, wanted the government to refer to the CDP master plan instead of the village map. “Things have changed over the years, and depending on the village map is not correct. Even government officers may struggle to locate a rajakaluve on the village map,” he said.

Architect Naresh V Narasimhan echoed a similar opinion. “It’s utterly shocking that Bengaluru being the IT hub depends on the village map. The primary reason for flooding is that no lake has been de-silted. The 800-acre Bellandur lake is just five feet deep, while its actual depth is 25 feet,” he said. “People who are new to the city don’t even know what’s a rajakaluve and kaldhari or kharab land. Buildings come up only on government approval.”

Earlier, Namrata Kolar, a litigation consultant, said the NGT ruling on lake buffer zone, if implemented, would invalidate projects that had duly followed all the procedures.

“The CDP report, which is prepared after long research and public debate, clearly sets the land use, demarcates existing as well as future roads and supersedes kaldhari/bandi dhari and defines the drains in place of erstwhile nalas. This master plan has legislative sanction. Even the High Court of Karnataka has upheld that the CDP supersedes all previous maps and sketches,” Irfan Razack, chairman of CREDAI National, told reporters.

Razack said it was incorrect for the government to rely on the 1904 village map as Bengaluru had undergone a drastic change in land use. “We go through a series of approval processes from different government agencies. The Occupancy Certificate (OC) must be the final document and there should be no revisiting even if the government changes,” he said.

CREDAI will support building a drain network across Bengaluru in public-private partnership and through the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, he added.

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(Published 26 August 2016, 20:59 IST)

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