Building plans get nod in illegal lakebed layout

Engineers hope it will be approved in future

The engineers of the Bangalore Development Authority South Zone, unmindful of the illegality of the layout on Venkatarayanakere (lake) in Gubbalala village near Uttarahalli, continue to approve building plans anticipating a green light from various government departments.

The BDA officials had developed the illegal layout comprising 120 sites over the lake bed in 2003-04, throwing the Supreme Court direction to the winds, which restricts any commercial or residential activity on lake land. So far, 16 houses have come up while foundations have been laid on four other sites. The layout was supposed to be for the economically weaker sections as dimension of each site is 600 sq ft.

However, considering the severity of the illegality, none of the BDA commissioners, town planning and engineering section officials have given their approval to the layout plan till now.

Yet, the South Zone engineers continue approving building plans. The engineers said the layout could be illegal but would get approved one day.

An engineer requesting anonymity said that as of now no direction had been given by superiors in the BDA to stop sanctioning of the building plans. He also contested the illegality of the layout, saying that the records available with them showed that it was not a lake but a government Kharaab land (wasteland). However, he agreed that the record of Rights, Tenancy and Crop (RTC) still shows that it is a lake.

More evidences of illegality

It is learnt that the sale deed of the site allottees do not bear the survey number of the land on which the layout has come up. This was apparently to hide the illegality involved in the formation of the layout.

To aid the BDA further, the Bescom officials at the ISRO Layout exempted the ‘beneficiaries’ of the layout from submitting the photocopy of the sale deed. Based on the approved building plan, electricity connections have been given to them.