Karnataka - Bangalore

Encroachment: delay in taking action decried

Special Correspondent

‘Land mafia has not been touched’

Bangalore: The Joint Legislature Committee looking into the encroachment of government land in and around Bangalore, on Saturday expressed displeasure over the delay by the Government in initiating action against land grabbers.

Addressing a press conference here, committee Chairman A.T. Ramaswamy said only poor families that had encroached upon land to build a house had been punished while the land mafia and the big players had not been touched. This had made the land mafia fearless.

Mr. Ramaswamy expressed the fear that people might lose faith in the administration machinery if the trend continued. “If the Government has commitment, it should immediately initiate serious action against big land grabbers so that there will be a fear among land sharks. Otherwise people will be suspicious about the Government,” he said.

Mr. Ramaswamy, who recently detected a case in which 15.11 acres of the Byrasandra tank had been grabbed and mortgaged by a developer, said the encroachment of this tank had been done in a methodical way with the involvement of financial institution and officials.

The Forest Department had not bothered to safeguard the tank though the area had been transferred to it for safeguarding. Just to show that it was doing something, the department had filed a police complaint, Mr. Ramaswamy said. The erstwhile Banagalore Mahanagara Palike had spent Rs 1.20 crore on the land though it had been transferred to the Forest Department.

All this showed that there was backing from influential persons and officials in the encroachment of the tank, Mr. Ramaswamy said and demanded action against land grabbers, financial institution and officials of the Forest Department and the BMP.

He also urged the Government to file an appeal before the Karnataka High Court challenging its recent order in which it had allowed a land developer to continue with the construction of an apartment on the 3.26 acres of disputed land on the NIMHANS premises at his personal risk and subject to the decision on the case. He alleged that the Government had failed to convince the court about the facts regarding the disputed land.

Mr. Ramaswamy said the second part of its interim report would be table this month during the ongoing legislature session.

He said the report would have names of those who had encroached upon government land through false affidavits. He refused to comment on Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s declaration that he would make known the names of 288 “VIP land grabbers”. He only said that the committee, in its department-wise reports, would name all the land grabbers. Giving the names of only a few persons might lead to suspicion that the committee was biased in its approach, he said.

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