BENGALURU: To keep up with the prevalent market rates, the Board of the BDA has decided to fix Rs 4,900 per sqft as the cost for sites of bigger dimensions in the Dr Shivarama Karanth Layout, said senior BDA officials. This was much higher than the Rs 3,650 sqft proposed by the BDA for the new layout, which is set to have 34,000 sites.
“We had proposed Rs 3,650 per sqft for all the sites across the layout. The Board has agreed to fix this price for sites running to dimensions of 20x30 sqft and 30x40 sqft. However, the prevalent market rate is Rs 6,000 per sqft. Hence, it has been decided that those purchasing bigger sites will have to pay a higher rate,” a senior official said.
He added that a similar differential pricing system within the same layout was done in the case of the Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout too.
Justifying, he added, “In case of sites of higher dimensions, like say 40x60 sqft or 50x60 sqft or anything above 30x40 sq ft, the roads would be considerably wider. This would enhance the value of the site. Hence, the higher pricing takes into account this factor.”
He also cited the case of Arkavathy Layout, where the sites were uniformly sold for Rs 250 per sqft. “Allottees later sold them to other interested buyers for 10 times the price,” he pointed out.
Another official refused to specify any deadline for the allotment of sites in Dr Karanth Layout, which was supposed to be alloted in the first week of December. “The Supreme Court has mandated that land-losing farmers be allotted sites first. So unless they are compensated with 15,000 of the sites here, the public has to wait,” he said. Asked about the compensation scene, Deputy Commissioner, of Land Acquisition, A Soujanya, said, “Out of 2,900 acres earmarked for compensation, we have already handed over 500 acres of land to farmers in the form of Entitlement Certificates. In the case of the remaining land-losing farmers, there are many discrepancies in the documents and multiple claimants for the properties. We are sorting them daily.” Also, 476 acres will go to revenue site-holders.