The Urban Development Department will soon constitute a sub-committee to propose amendments to the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act so as to regulate residential layouts outside the jurisdiction of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA).
The sub-committee will be set up on the directions of Upalokayukta Subash B. Adi, who had taken a suo moto complaint about a Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA) approved layout in Attibele. The sub-committee will submit within three months its report with proposal for amendments to the Act.
As many as 1,364 layouts were approved in eight planning areas — BMRDA, Anekal, Bangalore International Airport Area Planning Authority (BIAAPA), Hoskote, Kanakapura, Magadi, Nelamangala and Ramanagaram-Channapatna Urban Development Authority (RCUDA).
But of them, 15 layouts were never developed even five years after approval was granted. According to BMRDA, development was not completed in 317 layouts even after 5 years of approval and BMRDA claimed that in 715 layouts, infrastructure development was still in “progress”.
“After a detailed discussion with all stakeholders, it was decided that the Urban Development Department will form a sub-committee to look into the loopholes in the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act and Panchayat Raj Act. This is the reason why the private layouts approved by agencies like BMRDA have no regulation. The legislations are not clear on action to be taken against private developers who sell the sites and disappear,” Mr. Adi said.
Further, the Upalokayukta said that the department has agreed to withdraw 2005 circular that led to sudden rise in approval of layouts. Though the circular said that after approval the developer can sell 60 percent of the sites, since the law was silent on penalties, some developers sold all the sites. Mr. Adi also said that the BMRDA has already initiated criminal action against those developers who had failed to provide infrastructure in layouts even after selling stipulated number of sites.
