BELAGAVI/BENGALURU: The House Committee on Lake Encroachments which tabled its report in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, identified encroachments to the extent of 12,042 acres around Bengaluru and has recommended strict against encroachers and officials responsible for it.
The K B Koliwad committee report suggested to the government to handle the encroachment of 1,547 lakes and 3,271 tanks on a case-by-case basis. “The state government, while taking measures to clear encroachments to rejuvenate lakes and initiating legal action against encroachers, should also consider the social perspective of clearing encroachments on a case-by-case basis,” it said. It has also identified as many as 70 builders and real estate firms like Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE), Bagmane Tech Park, Enzime Tech Park, Brigade Developers, Adarsh Developers, Prestige Developers, Sobha Apartments and Oasis Apartments figure in the list of encroachers.
The committee recommended strict action against officials whose neglect, misuse of power or apathy was responsible for such large-scale encroachments. “While dealing with cases of third party encroachments, every case should be analysed in detail to identify such officials. Moreover, private persons behind lake encroachments should also be penalised,” the report said.
However, the report was soft on encroachments by government bodies. If encroachments were done by the government or its agencies to provide basic amenities to people, measures should be taken to leave these facilities intact, it said.
While being considerate about people who have unknowingly built houses on encroached land, the report proposed to the government to levy a one-time fine on those dwellers and allow them to live in their houses peacefully. Fines thus collected can be used as lake development fund to rejuvenate some of the dead lakes in the city, it said.
The report, running into 200 pages, identified specific encroachments in water bodies across Bengaluru and the major encroachers. It also noted that a total of 2,083 persons have encroached 501 acres and 11 guntas of storm water drain land in Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike limits. The length of SWDs encroached runs up to 1,090.66 km. It also noted that of the 837 lakes in Bengaluru Urban, only 91 did not have any encroachment while 67 of the 710 lakes in Bengaluru Rural were not encroached.
