The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Monday told the High Court of Karnataka that a survey has found 980 illegal constructions in the city.
The survey was carried out based on a direction issued suo motu by the court on September 19, 2019 after noticing several petitions complaining about illegal construction of buildings and inaction by the BBMP.
South zone has the highest 274 illegal constrictions, followed by Mahadevapura zone with 176. Yelahanka, East, Rajarajeshwarinagar, Bommanahalli, West, and Dasarahalli zones have 136, 108, 103, 92, 88, and 3 illegal constructions, respectively.
Details in this regard were submitted before a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Pradeep Singh Yerur during the hearing of the petition.
The engineers, attached to each ward office, would keep a vigil on illegal constructions during inspection of garbage collection and street cleaning and initiate action by issuing show-cause notice under provisions of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, the BBMP Commissioner stated in his affidavit submitted to the court.
Also, the BBMP said that citizens can complain through email, Twitter, WhatsApp or by calling the control room, details of which are available on the BBMP’s official website. Complaints can also be given to the ward committees and the officials attached to the ward.
While stating that it has sufficient number of staff, infrastructure, and funds to demolish buildings that are found to be illegal after following the legal process, the BBMP said it lacks the service of experts and specialised equipment in building demolition and hence this task is required to be entrusted to private agencies. On delay in demolition of illegal structures, it has been claimed in the affidavit that work lags because officers are entrusted with multiple tasks everyday.
Meanwhile, the BBMP told the court that as action initiated by the it against illegal constructions has been challenged before the Karnataka Appellate Tribunal, the Civil Court and the High Court, 1,129 cases are pending for adjudication and in several matters interim orders in favour of building owners are in force.
Shortage of officers
Though actions were taken for handling these cases, the BBMP is facing shortage of law officers with only three junior law officers working at present against the sanctioned strength of 16, the Commissioner stated, while pointing out that request has been made to the government for creation of additional posts of law officers.
