JOIN USGovt will act against realty firms for selling illegal sites: Minister
The State government will take action against builders and real estate firms for cheating innocent residents and selling them sites on encroached lakebeds, Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy said on Monday.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Reddy, who is also the Bengaluru Urban district in-charge minister, said eviction drives had been taken up at Sarakki, Jaraganahalli and Puttenahalli and other lakebeds on the direction of courts.
“Many of the residents might have invested their life’s savings to purchase plots and constructed their houses unaware that they had been sold illegal sites. I have urged the chief minister to come to their rescue by chalking out a rehabilitation programme. At the same time, the government is firm on taking action against the real estate firms who illegally sold these land,” Reddy said.
He said that of the 23,005 acres of lakebed spread in the BBMP limits, 1,470 acres had been encroached on and 985 acres had been recovered. The government was in the process of recovering the remaining land, he said.
Documents to be verified
The minister said he had convened a meeting of the administration of Bengaluru Urban district on Tuesday following complaints that the eviction drive was being conducted unsystematically. “Instructions will be issued that all documents have to be verified throughly before taking up demolition of any structure,” he said.
On the BJP’s charge that the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee office on Queen’s Road was constructed on a lakebed, Reddy said if the BJP logic was extended, then the Kempegowda bus station, the Hockey Stadium, the National Games village and other landmarks in Bengaluru will have been demolished as they too had come up on lakebeds.
Development Authorities have the provision to allot land for public purposes, he added.
The BJP-led BBMP had recently allotted one acre of land in Jakkaranayanakere to the JD(S) for the construction of its office, he pointed out.
He said action should be taken against the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board officials for bungling up and acquiring 68 acres of encroached land in Banaswadi.