The Belagavi City Corporation has announced compensation for the owners losing land area to facilitate road-widening works in the city.
The BCC also promised to rehabilitate those who belong to economically poor section and lost 100% land for the purpose.
At a meeting convened by the Mayor Kiran K. Sayanak here on Monday, the BCC at the behest of Feroz N. Sait, MLA (Belgaum North) and Sambhaji L. Patil, MLA (Belgaum South) took these two major decisions. An amount of Rs.3.50 crore from under the Chief Minister’s Special Grants of Rs.100 crore has been earmarked to award compensation and rehabilitate the needy families.
Mr.Patil and BCC Commissioner M.R. Ravi Kumar, who was also present, clarified that the Corporation had obtained consent from the owners for clearing of encroachments on the Ramlingkhind Galli and Ramdev Galli in the city, while only a few handful of the tenants were objecting. They further clarified that there was no need to acquire land for the road widening work as the BCC was clearing only the “set back” areas in front of the residential structures illegally encroached and constructed for commercial purposes.
Mr. Patil and Mr. Sait appealed to the residents to cooperate with the Government to create better infrastructure facilities considering massive population growth during the last five to six decades. Mr. Patil said there was no point in creating hurdles in the long pending road-widening works as none filed objections when the revised City Development Plan (CDP) was being prepared considering the population of the city touching 8 lakhs in 2021. It was approved in December 2006.
Mr. Sait said several other roads would also be widened soon after the monsoon, including those passing through Maratha Mandal School, Darbar Galli and Bhendi Bazaar.
Mr. Ravi Kumar stressed that improvement of infrastructure was needed as the State government had already recommended to the centre to Belagavi city in the list of Smart Cities. The first list of smart cities is likely to be announced on June 26.
Compensation
The compensation would be in form of amount for the extent of the land lost by the owner as per the guidance value fixed by the government, besides Transferable Development Rights (TDR), on the spot permission for renovation/development on the existing structure without any development or implementation fee, Mr. Ravi Kumar said.
Both the decisions on awarding compensation and rehabilitation are subject to the decisions expected to be taken up by the BCC Council soon.
