BJP leader V. Somanna demanded the State government to come up with land audit on Arkavathy layout of Bengaluru.
He was addressing a press conference at Reporters’ Guild here on Friday.
“While on one hand, over 8,000 people in Bengaluru are waiting for residential plots in Arkavathy Layout after completing all mandatory procedures, the area acquired for the Layout is, on the other hand, getting shrunk thanks to widespread denotifications. If the situation continues, no applicant gets a piece of land,” he said and demanded the government to get the land audit done so that the people could know how much land of the originally acquired 1,700 acres was presently available for the Layout formation.
Terming the Arkavathy Layout scam as a tip of iceberg of denotifications done after Congress assumed power in the state, the former housing minister alleged that State government had denotified a number of valuable lands at will throwing in the air the guidelines laid down by the High Court.
“In Arkavathy Layout alone, about 122 acres of lands were denotified violating the guidelines. Chief Minister did not even think fit to bring the issue before the Cabinet,” he added.
Pointing his fingers solely at chief minister, he charged that Siddaramaiah was blaming BJP and JD(S) for Arkavathy row just to cover up his own misdeeds.
Sand Mining :
Mr. Somanna alleged that the Raichur district administration had failed to curb illegal sand mining along the river-beds of Krishna and Tungabhadra.
“Considering the widespread illegal extraction of sand from Rivers Tungabhadra and Krishna and its transportation to neighbouring states apart from Bengaluru, I feel that district administration is in sound sleep,” he alleged.
He warned that his party would have to be up in arms if the deliberate administrative sluggishness continued.
Raichur Rural MLA Tipparaj Hawaldar, party leaders Basavanagowda Byagwatt, Ramanand Yadav, Trivikram Joshi and others were present.
