Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore   

Illegal house demolished, site recovered

By Our Special Correspondent

Bangalore Aug. 4. The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) on Sunday demolished an illegally constructed house in Jayanagar here. The BDA Commissioner, Jayakar Jerome, who along with the Deputy Commissioner, Rameshappa, supervised the demolition of the two-storeyed structure, told The Hindu that the culprit, S.R.Narasimhamurthy, had used "ingenious" methods to usurp BDA property. As of now, the BDA had recovered 16 property from him and there were likely to be many more such property in his possession.

With the erstwhile City Improvement Trust Board having handed over Jayanagar Extension to the Bangalore City Municipal Corporation about four decades ago, the BDA had to conduct a detailed and painstaking investigation on the information that it had received over the unauthorised occupation of its property. Ironically, most of the unauthorised occupations in Jayanagar were by Mr. Narasimhamurthy, who is believed to be heading a gang of land-grabbers.

The two-storeyed house was constructed on two sites measuring 60 ft x 40 ft and was occupied by Mr. Narasimhamurthy.

When the BDA authorities confronted Mr. Narasimhamurthy on Saturday, he volunteered to shift his belongings and by early Sunday, doors, windows, and bathroom fittings were removed. The BDA had taken over a corner site measuring 60 ft x 40 ft on the same road from Mr. Narasimhamurthy a few days ago. In the posh Jayanagar V Block, Mr. Narasimhamurthy had sold a much bigger site to a nationalised bank based on fake records. The building would be demolished soon after a stay order obtained by the bank was vacated.

Mr. Jerome said it was the first time in recent years that the BDA demolished a house. It was considered a fit case for demolition as the land mafia had unauthorisedly occupied it.

The BDA property recovered from the possession of Mr. Narasimhamurthy so far was worth about Rs.5 crores. Mr. Jerome said in the case of the house demolished on Sunday, Mr. Narasimhamurthy had obtained khata of his neighbour and deleted the prefix to the name (Inna from Inna Narasimhachar) and altered the site number of his house suitably. Then he constructed the two-storeyed house without a plan. He had directly tapped electricity from the main KPTCL transmission line. The drinking water and sewage connections were unauthorised. He had only paid property tax to the BMP.

The BDA Commissioner said the authorities would initiate criminal action against Mr. Narasimhamurthy.

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