Apathy in recovering encroached land angers minister

As many as 34,110 acres of government land in Bangalore Urban District have been encroached upon and only 10,738 acres have been recovered.

This grim picture on government land encroachment came to light during a review meeting of the Bangalore Urban District administration, which was chaired by district in-charge Minister of Bangalore, Ramalinga Reddy, on Saturday. The meeting was called to assess the progress in the implementation of various schemes of the Central and State governments.

A report, prepared by the Bangalore Urban District administration, says that the total extent of government land in Bangalore is 1,22,918 acres, of which 23,372 acres is still encroached. The report says that about 409 acres in Bangalore North, 9,773 acres in Bangalore North (A), 1,686 acres in Bangalore East, 4,900 acres in Bangalore South and 6,603 acres in Anekal Taluk have been encroached upon. Reddy directed the DC to speed up the recovery of encroached land by conducting a thorough survey.

In the meeting, the minister was told that the district administration had breathed life back into 138 lakes at an estimated cost of a whopping Rs 17.68 crore, while work is in progress on 16 more lakes. However, the names of the developed lakes were not given.

The report on the various government schemes drew the ire of the minister as they were shoddily implemented in the Urban district, barring the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike jurisdiction. The minister took the officials to task for their poor performance and attending the meeting unprepared.

During the review of social empowerment programme for the SC/STs and other backward communities, the officials had no answer to Reddy's query as to why the students from SC/ST communities prefer staying in the hostels for Other Backward Castes (OBCs). Reddy took the officer in charge for animal husbandry to task for coming unprepared.