BENGALURU: A bitter war is on for the last five years between a family which has given 14.5 acres of its property for the 18th Block of Arkavathy Layout and the 500-plus site owners here. With the BDA yet to give the family alternative land as compensation, one individual in the family is refusing to allow any allottee to carry out any construction here. Repeated visits to the BDA office and the police have not helped the site owners.
The Block is located off Hennur Road in Gedalahall and is part of the massive Arkavathy Layout where 8,813 sites were proposed. In the land taken from the Reddy family, 300 sites were created by the BDA.
Niranjan Narasaiah was allotted a site in 2005 and after the mandatory 10-year-lease period for sites, he got it registered in 2015. “I am yet to start building anything here. A family of landlosers, led by Rame Reddy, does not allow any of us to build houses here. Three senior citizens, site owners, have already passed away waiting,” he said. The sites are full of weeds and bushes and Reddy does not allow anyone to clear it too, he added.
Shiva Prakash G had paid Rs 2.27 lakh in 2006 for his 30x40 sqft site. He told TNIE, “The entrance to the sites behind the Bangalore International School has been sealed with debris by Reddy. A family had begun building a wall three years ago and he came and demolished it.”
Arkavathy Layout 18th Block House Owners Welfare Association president R Subramanya is the only individual who built his house here before Reddy started preventing the others. He said, “Whenever any site owner approaches the Hennur police for help, they tell us to go to the BDA office. The problem is that BDA is completely at fault here as they did not give Reddy’s family 40 per cent of developed land in exchange for the land taken.”
The Supreme Court had clearly mentioned that priority in allotment of sites must be given to land losers only. A top BDA official confirmed that alternative sites were yet to be handed over to Reddy’s family as well as another family here.
Asked about all the charges against him by the site owners, 60-year-old Reddy, a contractor with the BWSSB, admitted that he was not allowing anyone to build their houses here. “I have lost my land running into 25,550 sqft here and I am running around daily to the BDA office requesting them to give me a proper alternative land in any of the 22 Blocks of Arkavathy Layout. Giving me some site near drainage or in the wrong direction will not help. I am keen on sites in the East or North. If I am given the site tomorrow, I will allow everyone to go ahead and use the land.”