BENGALURU: The wall of Bowring Institute, an elite club in Bengaluru, was demolished by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike on Thursday on the grounds that the wall was unauthorised and no permission was sought from the civic agency to build it.
Pallavi KR, joint commissioner (East), BBMP, said, “For any structure they build, they need to take permission from BBMP. Our engineers sent a notice under Section 308 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act. The club gave us an undertaking that they will not construct anything in future without BBMP permission, which is when we stopped demolishing the wall. We came to demolish it as per the commissioner’s orders.”
However, the institute refutes the above claims that the wall is unauthorised. “BBMP demolished the wall for no reason. The 130-year-old wall was in a dilapidated condition. It was further damaged during TenderSURE work carried out on the footpath along the wall. In fact, the BBMP had themselves sent a notice to us in April 2014, pointing to the sorry state of the wall and asking us to reconstruct it. We were in the process of reconstructing the wall,” HS Srikanth, secretary, Bowring Institute, said in a release.
“Seven to eight months ago, rain and overgrown roots of nearby eucalyptus trees damaged the wall, apart from the TenderSURE footpath work by the Palike. We merely put a retainer wall and foundation so that it doesn’t crash and hurt someone. We will take this up with the commissioner and chief minister,” he told TNIE.
The club said the wall was demolished without any notice by two earthmovers at 1.30 pm. “They intended to demolish the compound wall and abetments. On being asked for the demolition order and demolished a section of the compound wall instead. The club had approached BBMP with a plan to construct a structure around the lawn for members in March this year. To date, no objection has been raised by the civic agency. This amounts to the plan being deemed to be sanctioned, in line with the BBMP’s laws,” the note said.