When a road leaves people in limbo

Making of a real estate corridor

Gopal S Reddy left his job in an automobile company abroad in 2016 when his family needed him after his mother fell ill. He returned to Sulikunte village near Sarjapur Road in Bengaluru and took charge of the greenhouse built on his family-owned agriculture land.

“We grow flowers like roses, Gerbera and many more, and vegetables like capsicum. The polyhouse makes a profit of Rs 18-20 lakh per year,” he says.

In April 2007, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) issued a preliminary notification marking 1810 acres of land for the Peripheral Ring Road (phase I)  in 67 villages surrounding Bengaluru. Of the 3.32 acres owned by Reddy’s family, 2.25 acres were marked. 

The 74-km PRR I project was conceived as project to connect Tumakuru Road (NH-4), Hesaraghatta Road (SH-39), Doddaballapura Road (SH-09), Ballari Road (NH-7), Hennur—Baglur Road (SH-104), Old Madras Road (NH4), Hoskote-Anekal Road (SH-35), Sarjapur Road, and Hosur Road (NH-7). 

It is also perceived to help divert passing traffic from the city and connect the roads leading to the next-level cities surrounding Bengaluru, such as Kanakpura, Hosur, Kolar and Mysuru.

However, 14,000 families whose lands were notified for the project are in limbo today, including the likes of Reddy. There is no clarity on when the project will expect them to vacate the land or what amount they would get as compensation.

Integration project

As if this were not enough, the government gave another shocker by announcing the integration of the PRR land with NICE Road—an idea dropped earlier when the politicians did not like it. An extra 750 acres, including 142 acres notified in 2010 but quashed later, were acquired in 2022 for this purpose.

“These decisions keep changing according to the whims of politicians ruling at the time. No party is pro-farmer; they are all hand in glove in this,” says Srinivas R, a farmer from Mavallipura who is also the president of PRR landlosers forum.

Take the case of Gururaj, who bought a site in Banashankari Enclave in Thammenahalli near Madanayakana Halli in 2020 during Covid-19 pandemic. 

Just when he started building a home there in 2022, he received a preliminary notification. The notification said the land was required to integrate the peripheral ring road (phase I) with the Nice Road. An extra road, clover-leaf designs and toll plazas were on cards as part of the integration in two places.

The area has many layouts—Anajanadri Layout, Shivateja Nagara Layout, Vrindavan Layout, etc.- where built spaces have been notified for the project, even though the BDA claims to have done drone surveys.

Part of the problem is that some layouts are “unapproved” in BDA’s books because the village panchayats approved them. More than 300 homes will be razed in this area alone to create a corridor for the integration project. Seven such integrations are happening.

“There is no ban on the sale of land here. We bought the land after the notification was issued for a price much higher than the guidance value, and we will be compensated according to the guidance value. The government should have banned registrations to avoid gullible buyers like us from buying the land in such areas that are already notified,” said a woman from Anjanadri Layout whose site would be acquired for the integration project.

Many families that spoke to DH explained their ordeal of pooling money to buy land in a peaceful locality, some during Covid, without being aware that the problem would strike them soon.

Meddling with compensation

A total of 2,560 acres of land is to be acquired now, but there is no clarity on how the people would be compensated. The project cost kept escalating, from Rs 5,800 crores in 2007 to Rs 14,934 crores in 2022 to Rs 27,000 crores now. 

This was because the land acquisition was not completed within the stipulated time. Section 27 of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) Act, 1976, mandates that the Authority must execute a scheme notified by it within five years from the date of its declaration in the official gazette, or the scheme will lapse.

However, the PRR project is still on, with hundreds of cases slapped against it and pending in court. Many of the landowners have also managed to get a stay.

Srinivas says the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, mandates the constitution of a valuation committee that would decide a property’s market value using the registered sale price of properties from subregistrars. The actual compensation would be more than three times the value thus determined.

“Land here costs Rs 8-10 crore per acre, according to the latest property registrations. We should get Rs 24 crore per acre according to the 2013 Act,” says Reddy.

The government renamed the PRR project Bengaluru Business Corridor (BBC) in 2024. This corridor is supposed to attract economic activities such as commercial ventures, infrastructure development, IT parks, etc. 

A meeting conducted in September 2024 concluded that the acquisition cost for the 1,810 acres would be Rs 20,511.07 crores, according to the 2013 Act. The meeting decided to award this compensation, acquire the land, and issue transferable development rights to the land losers where applicable.

However, the Urban Development Department later reversed this decision and appointed two committees to negotiate a price for the properties to be acquired. This would be lower than the market value, while the baseline would be the BDA Act.

“The BDA plans to mint money at our expense, while we have nowhere to go. We can’t sell our land, and we cannot do partition deeds. Many people have suffered because the subregistrars have frozen registrations for lands notified under PRR-I,” says Reddy.

Meddling with guidance value

The worst part of the government’s attempt to cut costs is keeping the guidance value unchanged for the areas notified under the PRR project. 

“In 2024, the guidance value was revised to Rs 4 crore. But it was quashed subsequently and the land value went back Rs 1.8 crore per acre with the sole intention of keeping the official prices low,” rues Reddy.

In fact, the then-chairman of BDA wrote in March 2016 to the Department of Stamps and Registration, asking the department not to raise the guidance value. The reason was that, as per the 2014 guidance value for 1,810 acres, the compensation would come to Rs 8,100 crore, which would be very expensive.

“The government and officials treat farmers as second-class citizens. No one responds to us properly. We can’t even protest in front of BDA according to the rules. We cannot even demand a fair price for our lands, even when this is all we have,” says Srinivas.

“They are using a 130-year-old British-era act to grab lands from us,” says Reddy. No detailed project report has been prepared until now, supposedly due to the lack of bidders and the subsequent cancellation of the projects. 

The land losers accuse powerful politicians of acquiring lands close to the PRR alignment and getting the alignment modified to avoid their properties, thus gaining benefits from the future road while the land price would skyrocket.

“A pastoral land close by was given to the Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana. We told the government to take that land for the corridor instead, because nothing is built there on that land anyway. But they refused to do it,” says Satish Gowda, a landloser.

Environmental impact not public

The land price for the Shivaram Karanth layout adjacent to the PRR is officially more than Rs 4900 per sqft, but the government refuses to pay well to those who lose their livelihood, say farmers.

Farmers and land losers say the project map or the Environmental Impact Assessment report is not public. Officially, the project would pass through six lakes, and total waterbodies would comprise 3% of the study area.

A draft environmental impact assessment report prepared in 2022, available on the Karnataka State Pollution Control portal, states that the area acquired is predominantly covered with Fallow land (27%), followed by agricultural land (22%) and a built-up area (20%). 

It notes plantation activities such as banana, coconut, areca nut, teak, eucalyptus, and floriculture.

“They sent some college kids who did not know how to identify a plant to study the environmental impact,” says Reddy.

The PRR-II (Bengaluru Business Corridor-II) connecting Hosur Road to Mysore Road has also gained momentum. Scores of people who would lose land here have no clarity on solatium, and their future is in limbo. History is only expected to repeat itself.