BDA bins draft Revised Master Plan 2031, to start from scratch

Nearly two years after submitting the Revised Master Plan-2031 for Bengaluru to the state government, the BDA is set to rework it from scratch, thanks to changes in the regime.

The BJP government had sent back the draft RMP to the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) in July “seeking some changes” and withdrew the provisional approval.

In a gazette notification on Thursday, the BDA sought suggestions from the public to be considered while revising the “RMP-2015”. Instead of making changes to the existing draft, the BDA will start
afresh.

This means, nearly four years of work to bring out the rules and guidelines to plan the development of Bengaluru has been wasted. It was in November 2017 that the state government had invited public comments on the RMP 2031.

The process to prepare the draft had begun much earlier, in December 2016, during the Congress government. The government had received 13,046 objections and suggestions to the plan which were not addressed during the coalition government.

BDA Commissioner H Mahadev said: “New rules will be made under the master plan with a focus on transit-oriented development. A tender will be called soon to select an agency for the same.”

He said completely new zonal regulation rules would come. “The objections submitted to the previous RMP will be invalid. Once the new rules are formed, we will invite the objections of the public once again,” he clarified.