Sarjapur Rd widening: property losers plan to move court

 More than 120 property owners have submitted their objections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) against widening of Sarjapur Road from Iblur Junction to Chikkanayakanahalli. They are also planning to move the court if the Palike did not address their concerns.

The BBMP plans to widen the road for introducing cycle tracks and to accommodate metro train which may come up in the area in the coming days.

“It is true that there is no plan for metro on this stretch. But we have to widen the road in such a way that there will not be any problems in future” said a senior BBMP official.

However, people who stand to lose their properties, term the Palike's decision "dictatorial." They say that the local body had not conducted any social impact assessment which is mandatory before taking up any huge project. Besides, property owners will be compensated only through issue of transferable development rights (TDR). They have no option to claim compensation in the form of money.

Chinnappa Reddy, who runs Lifeline Medicals on Sarjapur Road, is worried over the road widening plan. "I have lost sleep over the issue. I have been doing business here for the past 13 years. I will have to start from scratch if I have to move from here due to road widening," he said.

Bhagath Reddy, a software engineer, owns around 15,000 sqft of land. He said he has to part with 3,000 sq ft for road widening. "I was planning to put up a construction here. Now, even tenders have been called for road widening. I will fight for monetary compensation,"  he said.

Around three-fourth of Raghu's property is marked for demolition. "What will I do with the remaining one-fourth portion?” he rued.

B V Ramachandra Reddy, a former MLA from Varthur, said that the BBMP had marked 248 properties on the road for demolition and called for tenders. "This is clearly a violation of the law since tenders cannot be called before acquiring the land.”

He said that the road widening idea had technical flaws as it does not consider seven intersections which come up on a stretch of 3.5 km.

BBMP commissioner N Manjunath Prasad said that a notification had been issued before acquiring properties. "The objections have been forwarded to the Bangalore Development Authority since issue of TDR comes under BDA," he said.

When asked about payment of monetary compensation, Prasad said that the Palike cannot compensate property losers in cash as that it would have to shell out huge amount of money. "We cannot afford to spend so much money on compensation. We have other tasks which need priority," he added.