The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Congress to seek judicial inquiry

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 01, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Congress to seek judicial inquiry

Staff Reporter

23-member fact-finding panel on land acquisition set up by KPCC submits report to Kharge

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Fact-finding panel: The chairman of the ‘Sathyashodana Samiti’, Kagodu Thimmappa, submitting the committee’s report to KPCC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge (left) in Bangalore on Tuesday, along with committee members B.L. Shankar and V.R. Sudarshan (right).

Bangalore: The ‘Sathyashodana Samiti’, a committee constituted by the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) to look into the acquisition of land for various development projects in and around Bangalore, has recommended a judicial inquiry into all such acquisitions cleared by the Janata Dal (S)-Bharatiya Janata Party Government.

Addressing presspersons after submitting its report to KPCC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge here on Tuesday, the chairman of the 23-member committee, Kagodu Thimmappa, said a judicial inquiry had become inevitable in the public interest. Many members of the committee, including D.K. Shivakumar, B.L. Shankar, V.R. Sudarshan and P. Kodandaramaiah, were present.

Satellite towns

Mr. Thimmappa said that if the Government was keen on reducing the developmental pressure on Bangalore city, it should exploit non-cultivable lands in districts such as Hassan, Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Mysore, Mandya, Tumkur and Kolar and develop them as satellite towns. The Government should realise that once its proposed Greater Bangalore and related development projects became a reality, the city would become a haven for the land mafia and estate agents at the cost of the common man. Bruhat Bangalore would become a large slum, he warned.

The committee made observations in certain cases, including the proposed satellite town in Ramanagaram, the land earmarked for the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and the proposed Nandagudi Special Economic Zone. “Right from K.C. Reddy’s first State Government to the N. Dharam Singh Government, only 16,668 acres were allocated in around Bangalore for industrial and other purposes. But the JD(S)-BJP coalition Government, which came into existence 17 months ago, has allocated 29,857 acres in 15 months and is set to acquire 1,19,561 acres,” the committee noted.

The very existence of Bangalore was at stake in the light of the growth of the non-agricultural and industrial sectors in Bangalore Urban and Bangalore Rural districts. The Government should immediately get the “carrying capacity” of the two districts assessed by international experts.

It should stop all development activities in the two districts until the report submitted by the experts was discussed with the public and the Opposition parties, the report said.

‘Dangerous trend’

Referring to the proposed SEZs, the report said a “dangerous trend” in the real estate business had been emerging in the name of SEZs. There was a dire need to address the existing anomalies in the 2005 and 2006 SEZ rules, it said.

The committee has recommended measures to ensure that SEZs are not misused by vested interests: the Government should only lease and not confer ownership to private developers or promoters; it should fix a maximum area of 2,000 hectares for each developer; the State Government should take up projects on its own or as joint ventures wherever the area of development exceeds the maximum limit.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka