Palike now plans to pay a bomb to buy pvt land for Indira Canteens

With land scarce, BBMP ready to pay market price for plots

 In a desperate move, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will now consider buying private land at market price for constructing Indira Canteens in the city.

The BBMP has so far identified around 16 places, including Mahadevapura, Doddan- ekkundi, Chikkalsandra among others for purchasing private land. The project, which involves building canteens in all 198 wards, is now finding it difficult to allot government land as the high court has directed BBMP not to build Indira Canteens in parks or playgrounds.

The already cash-strapped civic body now plans to spend crores of rupees to buy land to implement Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s pet project — subsidised food for the poor — to woo voters.

According to sources in BBMP, it requires around 1,600 sqft or 40”X40’’ area to construct a canteen. Going by the guidance value (price of the property as fixed by the department of Stamps and Registration) of the land, it is estimated that around Rs 80 lakh will be spent on each plot of land for the construction of the canteen. However, the civic body has to shell out even more money on land if it plans to build a kitchen on private land since the kitchen has a larger dimension 2,400 sqft.

BBMP plans to build 27 kitchens, one in each Assembly constituency. This is done according to the “hub and spoke” model, where food will be cooked in one kitchen in the Assembly constituency and will be supplied to all canteens under the constituency.

Although private lands are not finalised yet, the civic body will look at buying them after the launch of the first batch of canteens, which is scheduled on August 15.

“We have identified around 181 plots which belong to the BBMP. We will look at buying private land if we do not have any option left,” said a senior official in the BBMP.

Another senior official in the BBMP said, “Building a canteen should not be a problem as its construction causes less pollution, leaves no debris and less inconvenience to people around the site.”