The common narrative at most encroachment clearance drives that have taken place in the city is that the property owners are caught clueless about their plots and houses sitting on a rajakaluve, until the earthmovers arrive at their gates.
And, there is no system which helps a prospective buyer verify if the future property is on a rajakaluve, lake or any natural body.
Property consultant R. Ramesh said that the only way it could be verified is to procure village survey maps, identify the survey number of the site and see if there is any kharab land marked out in the plot.
If there is, the enquirer has to ascertain the nature of the kharab land at the tahsildar office, which will be an uphill task.
Urban experts are now pointing to the need for the city administration to make available geo-spatial data of all natural bodies overlapped over a city map in a digital format to citizens.
“This is the only way we can let the buyers make an informed decision about the property,” said V. Ravichandar, member of BBMP restructuring committee, which collected extensive GIS data of the city. However, there is not enough data, say the others.
“What we have is data procured from the satellite, from which we can mark the present alignment and the recent encroachments. But this data is incomplete, unless this is reconciled with village maps, most of which date back to colonial times. Village maps are still on paper, which needs to be brought to the digital format,” said Ashwin Mahesh, of Mapunity, a start-up working in the geo-spatial data sector.
Following directions from the legislature committee on lakes in the city, the Revenue Department and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) carried out a survey of the drain network in the city and found 1,923 encroachments, which forms the basis for the clearance drive now.
However, this survey too was carried out manually and GIS data was not accommodated.
Head: Drains and encroachments
Total network: 857 km
Encroachments: over 400 km
Total encroachments | 1,923 |
Encroachments removed | 854 |
Encroachments yet to be cleared | 1,069 |
