BDA chief flooded with plaints on KG Layout visit

New BDA Commissioner N Manjula’s first visit to KG Layout on Wednesday turned out to be a public hearing of the grievances of site allottees and landowners.

Manjula visited KG Layout, a housing colony coming up over thousands of acres between Mysuru Road and Magadi Road in northwestern Bengaluru, to review the progress of the civil works there. She started off from the Kommaghatta side (Mysuru Road) and went around the different blocks of the housing colony until Magadi Road.

Anticipating her visit, site allottees and farmers waited for her at several places to express their anguish at the BDA’s actions.

Some demanded that the BDA compensate them for the delay in completing the project. “If we delay paying tax even for a day, the civic body imposes a hefty penalty on us. How much should the BDA pay us for not completing the project within the stipulated deadline,” asked Ramanna Gowdaiah, a site allottee.

He also alleged irregularities in the project. “There is a mess. The commissioner must hold the engineers accountable. There are also middlemen who are coming in the way of registering the sites. Unless these issues are addressed, nothing will happen,” he added.

Some of the farmers who parted with their land for the formation of KG Layout warned of resuming agriculture on their respective farmlands. According to them, the BDA isn’t following the rules in the site allotment. “After giving away my land, I’ve literally become a beggar,” Vijay, a farmer from Kanali village, said. “As per the agreement, I should get 40% of the sites developed on my land. But all the sites developed on my land have been sold. I have been fighting against this injustice for years. Some of us are going to fence our land and start agriculture to shame the BDA into taking action.”

The commissioner promised to address the grievances at the earliest. When some allottees expressed concerns about the quality of civil works, she sought clarifications from the project engineers. Speaking to DH, Manjula said: “I visited KG Layout to get a first-hand understanding of the issues there. I asked the engineers to address the grievances of the site allottees within 15 days.”