BENGALURU: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) revolutionary proposal to curb building plan violations, announced in the budget, has come under criticism from various sections, including the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI).
As per the proposed rule, the ground floor of all ground plus four buildings will be registered with the BBMP until construction is complete. And in case of non-compliance with the building plan submitted earlier, BBMP will retain ownership of the ground floor. The method has been tried in Hyderabad a decade ago and has reportedly met with success.
S Suresh Hari, secretary, CREDAI, termed it a regressive rule. His fundamental issue with the rule was that violations should be prevented before they happen, instead of action being taken later. He also said the Real Estate Regulatory (RERA) Bill, which would be introduced across the country from next month, provisioned for stricter penalties for defaulting builders, which will make the BBMP’s rule regressive.
Ravindranath Guru, member of Citizen Action Forum, who has done a lot of work dealing with Akrama-Sakrama, termed it “a foolish idea”. He said, “The issue is with the lack of implementation by ward engineers, who are in fact empowered to stop illegal construction immediately. And what is BBMP planning to do with the ground floor constructions that it will get?”
Civic expert V Ravichandar said he has “a philosophical problem” with the proposed rule. He said, “There were laws to deal with violations earlier too, why not just implement them? The business of government agencies is to enforce law, and violations shouldn’t be allowed because the ground floor is registered with BBMP.”