Affordable housing that BDA promises continues to be a dream for site allottees.
On Saturday, a group of allottees of Banashankari VI Stage 4th T-Block extension paid yet another ‘futile’ visit to the BDA office. For the past eight years, 168 allottees have been caught in a legal tangle between the BDA and the original land owners.
Though the allottees have been handed over possession of the land by the BDA in 2007, the original land owners moved the high court where the case is still being heard. “The locals have even defaced the site numbers given by BDA. We can’t even recognise our site,” says Shyam Sundar (56).
The allottees paid Rs. 3 lakh for the 30x40 site in 2004, and even continue to pay around Rs. 600 annually as property tax when BDA demands it. “In the past two months, five hearings have been adjourned. It doesn’t seem like the BDA’s lawyers are doing enough to vacate the stay and develop the land,” he said. He said many of the allottees had passed away and their children have taken up the fight for the land.
BDA Commissioner T. Sham Bhatt said senior lawyers had been hired to fight the case. “We cannot decide how it goes in the court or how long it will take. But, we have engaged senior counsels for this,” he said.
This is not the only struggle. The controversial Arkavathy Layout has seen more than 8,000 allottees waiting on tenterhooks with the Kempanna Commission yet to deliver its verdict on the “revised” layout design.
Mr. Bhatt said the legal issues with farmers had been sorted out, and work on the infrastructure in the layout will begin soon.
