The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Sakrama dominated the BBMP agenda

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 28, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Sakrama dominated the BBMP agenda

Afshan Yasmeen

The scheme drew criticism from
the people

BANGALORE: The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) may not have made giant strides on the infrastructure front this year, but it definitely made a mark by being aggressive in implementing Sakrama, the scheme to regularise unauthorised constructions all over the State.

Under the Karnataka Town and Country Planning (Regularisation of unauthorised development or constructions) Rules, 2007, seven corporations in the State, including Bangalore, have embarked upon the regularisation process. Violations up to 50 per cent in residential buildings and up to 25 per cent in commercial ones can be regularised under Sakrama that was launched on September 14.

The implementation of the scheme, which became a subject of heated debate amid confusion and dissent from citizens, was finally put on hold by the Karnataka High Court on December 11. Then, Governor Rameshwar Thakur extended the December 14 deadline to March 31.

This brought great relief to the citizens, who were worried about paying heavy amounts to get their buildings regularised. The civic body had threatened to disconnect water and power lines of those who did not opt for Sakrama.

Though the scheme actually protects violators of building bylaws, in most cases citizens were affected because they had been duped by builders/developers, who had violated norms in construction of apartments and formation of layouts, and sold property to gullible buyers.

The scheme became controversial when the affected house owners blamed civic officials and the government authorities for allowing unauthorised layouts to spawn while the authorities held the owners responsible for paying bribe at every step to go ahead with construction.

Fees

The Government had prescribed a fee for different corporations and municipalities for the regularisation of unauthorised sites, whether converted or not, and for the setback and FAR violations.

The civic body, which expected to collect more than Rs. 800 crore through the scheme, spent Rs. 1.10 crore on publicity alone. Though more than 1.8 lakh people bought the Sakrama applications, less than 4,000 actually applied for regularisation and the fee collected has been deposited with a bank.

Protests

A series of protests were held by various residents’ welfare organisations and civic groups that met the Governor and submitted memoranda. Some groups, including the Citizens’ Action Forum and the Federation of J.P. Nagar 7th and 8th Phases Associations, approached the court seeking scrapping of the scheme.

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

Karnataka