BBMP hopes amended Act will end building plan violations

Palike to keep part of property, release it only if byelaws are followed

Unable to check building plan violations, BBMP has stumbled upon a novel idea of registering the ground floor of big apartments and releasing the portion only if the building complies with the sanctioned building plan.BBMP has proposed this amendment to the Town and Country Planning Act in its budget – 2017-18. BBMP’s Taxation and Finance Committee chairperson M K Gunashekar said: “The proposal is not meant for houses on smaller plots. This is only for big buildings. We will retain 10% of the property till the building is completed. If there is zero violation, we will return the portion. If there are violations, we will retain it.”

Vital for builders
Elaborating, Gunashekar said the portion Palike retains will be vital for builders as they cannot afford to violate the sanctioned plan. The moot question is: What will the BBMP do with the portion in the event of building plan violations? “We can either rent it out or sell it,” Gunashekar said. “Builders cannot afford to lose the ground floor of the building and hence, no violations will happen,’’ he hopes. Asked why the Palike was not preventing violations at the beginning, Gunashekar said builders often get a stay on any objections filed by Palike engineers at the start of the project. Hence, this mechanism was thought of.

He said this has been tested in Hyderabad and it had yielded positive results. Speaking to DH, advocate Arun Sham said the amendment cannot be justified. “It is like virtually taking away someone’s property and doing business on it. When already rules are there to check building plan violations, another mechanism, which takes away someone’s property rights cannot be sustained.

Builders too have opposed the move. The secretary of the Bengaluru chapter of CREDAI, Suresh Hari termed the move absurd. “Such amendments create avenues to harass people. It is not a right step to curb violations. Let BBMP rectify the problem at the beginning itself. Preventing crime is better than catching criminals after the crime,” said Hari.  He said the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) Act will ensure that no such violation takes place.

‘No merit’
Pratik K Mehta, managing director, Unishire, said, “The proposed amendment has absolutely no merit. The intention is that no developer violates the plan sanctions and to address this, strict laws and regular monitoring and inspection by BBMP engineers is required. Moreover, RERA, to be rolled out from next month, has some strict guidelines. Such regressive rules tend to deviate from the core problem and yield nothing.”