The roads here are not wide, neither are they asphalted; only levelled with crushed stones. This layout does not have most civic amenities, including a park or playground, even though the Bangalore Development Authority approved the layout plan in 2012.
The residents and site owners of Vishwabharathi Cooperative Housing Society Layout in Girinagar here are at their wits end. They claim that though they pay property tax to the BBMP, their building plans were not being approved nor are khatas issued.
N. Bhat, a resident, claimed that only a few site owners have A-Khata (permanent khata). “It is not clear what kind of khata the others possess. If the layout is unauthorised, action should be initiated against the housing society. Why are we being harassed?” He claimed that they were neither able to sell their sites nor avail themselves of loans to construct their homes.
On Friday, Mayor D. Venkatesh Murthy, accompanied by Basavanagudi MLA Ravi Subramanya, Girinagar councillor H.S. Lalitha and officials from BBMP and BDA, inspected the layout developed by the housing society on 79 acres. While 1,335 sites have been distributed, the layout lacks basic civic amenities.
Recommending disciplinary action against BBMP officials who have sanctioned khatas to some site owners in the layout, he said the civic body should recover the development charges from the officials itself. He also said that he would write to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and urge him to withdraw the bulk allotment permission that was granted to the society in 2007 by the H.D. Kumaraswamy government.
He said it had been brought to the notice of even the BDA that the society had not distributed sites as per the seniority list. There were many charges of irregularities against the society as well. The layout has not yet been handed over to the BBMP by the BDA. “Hence, the society must be superseded and an administrator appointed.”
According to a BDA official, in 2010, the High Court had directed the BDA to ensure that no building plans were sanctioned and construction was taken up in the layout after some society members approached it claiming seniority had not been maintained while sites were distributed. The society had now submitted the seniority list to the BDA and Registrar of Cooperative Societies. The BDA has already collected development charges and penalty amounting to Rs. 44 crore. The list has to be approved by both BDA and Registrar of Cooperative Societies.
