No revenue for govt from events at Palace Grounds: CM

'Will ensure speedy disposal of case in Supreme Court'

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Thursday that the State would ensure that the cases pertaining to the Bengaluru Palace, pending in the Supreme Court, were disposed of at the earliest.  

Replying to V S Ugrappa (Congress) in the Council, Siddaramaiah said that following the interim order of the Supreme Court to maintain status quo, the property was with the government. But the possession of the same was with the Mysuru royal family. 

“Now, several temporary constructions have come up and hundreds of events are organised here every year. The government is just reduced to giving permission to the programmes held on the Palace Grounds,” he said.

The chief minister said that the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) had a single window clearance wing to just accord permissions for programmes approved by the royal family. For the last one year (January 2014 to January 2015), 597 programmes were held on the palace grounds. The government is not getting any money for it. 

“We are not even aware of how much money is collected by organising events and exhibitions here. There is no account for it,” he pointed out. 

Siddaramaiah said that the palace road stretch had just six temporary sheds and now there were 59 such temporary constructions, all hosting commercial activities. 

 Ugrappa questioned as to how the DPAR did not know about the money collected by organising programmes here and said that the annual transaction was over Rs 5,000 crore. He suggested the government to acquire the property in 40:60 ratio (the acquisition procedure where 40 per cent of the developed land is given back to the land owners, while acquiring the property for development purpose).

The chief minister said that the government would seek early disposal of cases in the apex court. “The over-400-acre property was acquired in the early 90s with an intention that the huge patch of land in the heart of the City should not be exploited, but retained as a lung space,” he said.

Basavaraj Horatti (JD-S), in a lighter vein, reminded the chief minister that several big ticket weddings, including those of the children of politicians, were held at this venue.