Days after parts of southeast Bengaluru were flooded, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has woken up to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order on buffer zone around water bodies and Storm Water Drains (SWD).
On Wednesday, the civic body issued a public notice that the buffer zone norms stipulated by the NGT will be strictly enforced. No plan sanction will be given henceforth for buildings in buffer zones.
“The recent floods and inundation can be traced back to constructions that have come up on the edge of SWDs and lakes, which will be removed soon,” the notice says.
This is for the first time that the BBMP has said that it will remove encroachments in buffer zones too.
Sources in the BBMP said that while the buffer zone norms have been in effect for at least two months, such a public notice has been issued for the first time.
Though the public notice also mentions that all illegal construction in buffer zones will be demolished, civic officials clarified to The Hindu that only buildings within the old buffer zone (30 metres) around lakes would be demolished.
“The NGT order is prospective, and not retrospective. We will demolish encroachments in the old buffer zone (30 metres) and will henceforth not permit buildings to come up in the new buffer zone,” a senior BBMP official said.
So far, officials and various committees have focused on encroachments of lakebeds and SWDs, but not their buffer zones.
K.B. Koliwad, chairman of the legislature committee on lakes, has ordered a survey of buffer zones in the city.
