Malleswaram market row: Chief nminister inspects BDA office

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday conducted a surprise inspection of the Bangalore Development Authority office. The visit is said to be in the wake of an open letter urging him to look into the alleged irregularities in the Malleswaram market project.

The BDA wants to build a Rs 300-crore mall on the two-and-half acre land of the Market located on the ever busy Sampige Road. The road is already crammed with Mantri Mall, Mantri Square Sampige Metro Station and Mantri Developers’ twin towers comprising multi-storey residential and commercial buildings.

Some social activists including Tapal Ganesh and B M Shivakumar made an appeal to Siddaramaiah through an open letter seeking his intervention to halt the BDA’s controversial project. They said the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) renovated the market spending Rs 15 lakh in April 2011, but a few months later the Palike and the BDA came up with a plan to demolish the market. Recently, it initiated measures to demolish the Malleswaram Market to build the mall.

Despite severe opposition, the civic agencies decided to go ahead with the project. The activists, in their letter to Siddaramaiah sought to know the rationale of renovating the market and demolishing it a few days later. They even appealed him to carry out inspection and see for himself all the files pertaining to the proposed mall.

The outcome of Siddaramaiah’s visit was not known, but sources claimed that he was furious with the BDA officials. He directed them to put the project on hold and not to demolish any shops till his further instructions.

He even pulled them up for the Banashankari sixth stage and HSR Layout EWS quarters projects.