Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar today alleged that the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has become a “den of corruption”. He maintained that the authority had suffered losses to the tune of Rs. 10,000 crore owing to a scam in which land mafia had colluded with officials to get “costlier” alternative sites in return for the illegally acquired land for building infrastructure for BDA.
Mr. Shettar, who raised the issue in the Legislative Assembly on Monday, said the BDA has been in the “business of denotification of lands” rather than distribution of sites or building infrastructure for the city. Instead of conducting an inquiry into “missing of BDA files”, former Commissioner T. Sham Bhat filed an affidavit before the Kempanna Commission, which was inquiring into the denotification of lands in the Arkavathi Layout, and submitted duplicate copies of files, he said.
Citing a case, Mr. Shettar alleged that Hanumanthe Gowda, a developer, had managed to get hundreds of costlier sites in HSR Layout and Banashankari Layout in return for lands taken away for development of roads in other areas located on the outskirts of the city by the BDA. Mr. Gowda purchased hundreds of sites on the outskirts of the city by telling people in Kengeri and other areas that they would lose houses and lands as the BDA would acquire their properties for infrastructure projects. He paid Rs. 2 lakh to Rs. 3 lakh to the “poor families” and purchased their property. Later, he reportedly fabricated documents with the help of BDA officials to show that land had been taken over for building roads without a formal acquisition process. In return, Mr. Gowda and other agents were getting alternative sites in the old layouts of BDA where the land prices were much higher than market value.
Mr. Shettar alleged that such persons who had got costlier alternative sites were not original land owners. They were actually hoodwinking original land owners to sell their lands to them, he claimed.
Instead of granting sites, BDA should provide compensation to land losers, the BJP leader demanded. Alleging that such a scam was going on with the knowledge of BDA officials and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Mr. Shettar demanded suspension of BDA officials involved in the scam.
