Thursday, June 20, 2013

Real estate mafia grabs govt land in Karnataka


BANGALORE, June 18, 2013

Private builders carve up land into sites in collusion with officials

A surprise inspection by officials on the Bangalore’s outskirts has unearthed a major scam running to multiple crores, where close to 1,000 acres of government land was grabbed by real estate mafia and sold to hundreds of gullible people as sites.
Private builders were found to have encroached upon 965 acres of land in the Bannerghatta village panchayat limits, formed layouts and sold them, an inspection by the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Bangalore (Urban) in the panchayat limits covering 10 villages has concluded.
Tip of the iceberg

This could just be the tip of the iceberg and we are continuing inspections in other village panchayats falling under Bangalore district,” said Deputy Commissioner of Bangalore District (Urban) G.C. Prakash, who led the inspection, adding that the nature of the scam was much bigger than what the inspection on Monday revealed. The builders, in collusion with the village panchayat officials, created illegal khatas to claim ownership of the government land. However, they could not change the regular RTC (Record of Rights) from the Revenue Department which clearly shows that the land in question belongs to the government. Similar revelations of large-scale government land encroachments were made earlier by the joint legislature committees led by A.T. Ramaswamy and a task force for the recovery of public land led by V. Balasubramaniyan.
Among the major encroachers is the management of Champakdhama

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

Land records fudged, 965 acres grabbed in Anekal

TNN Jun 18, 2013, 04.07AM IST

BANGALORE: Encroachment of huge tracts of government land - approximately to the tune of 965 acres worth crores of rupees - has been unearthed in Anekaltaluk, Bangalore Urban district. This was during a surprise field visit by deputy commissioner GC Prakash and other revenue officials on Monday.

"We have found illegal transactions of land by local civic bodies like village panchayats to private individuals who later formed private layouts and sold housing plots to other individuals. The encroached lands include lake beds, storm water drains, government lands and gomala (grazing land). We even found that a property belonging to Champakadhamaswamy temple, measuring over 26 acres, was transferred illegally in the name of land-grabbers who later sold it to individual site seekers in Anekal taluk," said Prakash.
Revenue officials said the frauds were detected during inspection of two hoblis in the taluk - Kasaba and Jigani. The records of villages coming under them - Bannerghatta, Sampigehalli, Hulimangala, Vabesandra, Nandapura, Hullahalli, Dhingipura, Dhootanahalli, Kallanayakana Agrahara, Bilvaradahalli and Mantapa - were checked and largescale fraud detected, revenue officials said.

They said there was a lot of encroachment in Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP), the quantum of which can be given only after verification. The revenue department has plans to inspect areas coming under Sarjapur and Attibele hoblis of Anekal taluk next week.

© 2013 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved

'965 acres of government land encroached'

By Express News Service – BANGALORE
18th June 2013 09:52 AM

About 965 acres of government land in the Green Belt area around Bannerghatta has been encroached upon for illegal layouts. Following repeated complaints about the violations, Bangalore Urban Deputy Commissioner G C Prakash on Monday conducted a raid in Bannerghatta gram panchayat limits of Anekal and found 794 illegal layouts.
Prakash told Express: “Illegal constructions have come up in gomala (grazing) land, on rajakaluve (main storm water drain) and gundlu topu (forestry land), gramathana (village administered land) and kharab (barren) land. Some layouts have been formed in just one acre, others in three acres. I have ordered eviction of the same.’’
The raid that started from 10 am went on till 3 pm. The DC had summoned panchayat officials and revenue officers. Prakash pointed out that most of the government land in Anekal taluk comes under the Green Belt. One such case is encroachment of the land belonging to the Champakadhama Temple.
According to official figures, the temple should have 33 acres.
After several encroachments, the temple presently has less then 5 acres. The Bannerghatta Lake too has shrunk and there is no water, no storm water drain and no culverts because of encroachments.
I had asked for the documents of the whole of Anekal, so that we can know extent of the encroachment. I will initiate action on those who were involved in these illegalities,” Prakash said.
Prakash said government land was sold to builders in connivance with gram panchayat officials. “This was resold to middle class people,” he added.
Issue Notice to Warn People’
More than 20,000 sites can be been formed in this encroached area. Officials have been asked to issue a notice in newspapers warning public not to buy revenue land, as it will have legal complications.
Around 34,000 acres of land in Bangalore Urban has been encroached as per the reports of A T Ramaswamy Committee. While 17,000 acres were taken back by various government departments, the district administration has recovered 10,000 acres.
The remaining 7,000 acres are still encroached.
Copyright © 2012 The New Indian Express. All rights reserved.














No comments:

Post a Comment