The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : BBMP goes all out to regularise building by-law violations

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 07, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

BBMP goes all out to regularise building by-law violations

Afshan Yasmeen

The civic body expects to earn Rs. 800 crore by way of penalties

Rs. 1 crore to be spent on the publicity campaign
The scheme will be open for three months from September 15

BANGALORE: The city’s leading civic body is roping in the Postal Department, the state-run Apex Bank and Bangalore One centres to make it easy for violators of building by-laws to pay penalty and regularise their constructions. It has set aside Rs. 1 crore to launch an advertising blitzkrieg to ensure violators don’t miss the opportunity.

All 225 computerised post offices, 31 branches of Karnataka State Cooperative Apex Bank Ltd. and Bangalore One centres will sell and receive applications to regularise the violations, top official sources at the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike told The Hindu on Thursday. The BBMP is gearing up to implement the Karnataka Town and Country Planning (Regularisation of Unauthorised Development or Constructions) Rules 2007 from September 15 for three months. The draft rules to regular ise building by-law violations were notified on August 14.

It is hi-tech all the way. The entire process — from receiving applications, processing them to verifying the extent of deviation — will be automated.

“Discussions are on with the postal department and the Apex Bank. The applications received at these centres will be forwarded to the zonal screening committees on a day-to-day basis,” the official said.

Another first

The civic body, which expects to earn Rs. 800 crore from penalties, has outsourced the task of publicising it to a private advertisement agency, the first time it has done so.

“With the city spread across 741 sq km, there is a lot to be done to popularise the scheme. We expect more than two lakh people to apply for regularisation and even if half of these applications qualify for availing of the benefit, it is a mammoth task that needs a lot of ground work,” a top official involved in the process told The Hindu. The advertising agency will arrange publication of advertisements, articles, interviews, press conferences in leading newspapers, ma gazines, television channels and the Internet. The agency will design and print brochures, fliers and pamphlets, conceptualise and plan road shows, conferences, workshops and business meetings.

Setting the process in motion, a training workshop was organised for staff members of the engineering and revenue departments of the BBMP on Thursday.

Commissioner S. Subramanya along with the Joint Director (Town Planning) S.S. Topagi and Additional Commissioner (Administration) Ramprasad briefed the participants on how to receive the applications, scan the details and forward them to the eight screening committees headed by the zonal joint commissioners.

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