Private parties encroached 43.24 acres of BU’s land: Survey

Bengaluru: A recent total station survey at Bangalore University's (BU) Jnanabharathi campus has revealed that around 43.24 acres of land has been encroached upon by private parties.

The survey was conducted following directions from Higher Education Minister Dr MC Sudhakar, who instructed the university to act against encroachments with the help of the Bengaluru Urban district administration.

University officials said that although legal cases had been filed earlier, a total station survey had never been carried out. The survey revealed that 15.29 acres are under civil and high court cases, while 19.38 acres are under litigation.

Based on the survey, the university has filed 33 cases in the Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Special Courts. "We will be filing cases against the remaining encroachments as well,” said Vice-Chancellor SM Jayakara.

Encroached land includes graveyards, temples, private houses, and even full layouts, according to available details.

Jayakara said that the university has taken several steps to reclaim the land.

"We have written to the Department of Revenue, Survey and Land Records to transfer RTCs of university land currently in the name of encroachers. We have also set up a separate section to handle land-related matters and appointed a retired surveyor as Assistant Director of Land Records,” he said.

At a glance 

Total land: 1,201.24 acres
Land available (as per station survey): 1,184.16 acres
Land utilised by university: 832 acres
Land awarded to other institutions: 281.06 acres
Institutions using excess land: 40 acres
Land given to BMRCL: 0.36 acres
Land given to UVCE: 52.01 acres