BENGALURU: An open grievance redressal meet for the public on Wednesday held by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) ended up as a closed-door meeting with BDA Commissioner Kumar G Naik. The scheduled meet was cancelled with no intimation given.
On Tuesday, a Public Relations team had invited the public as well as the media to take part in the meet when the government had already deputed top BDA officials for election duty training a couple of days prior. A staffer at the BDA chairman's office told this reporter, “The meet has been cancelled as all the officers have left for election-related duty.”
The meet was scheduled between 3 pm to 5 pm at the BDA head office.
Those who arrived for the meet were not intimated that the officers who could redress their issues were not available. The clueless public waited in vain at the BDA's board room where such meetings are held regularly.
Public Relations Officer Vijayananda was unavailable and his staffer had no idea that the meeting was not taking place.
Meanwhile, a stream of visitors queued up outside Commissioner Kumar G Naik's office to submit their written grievances. He gave the public assurances and collected their memorandums.
A group of aggrieved allottees from Arkavathy Layout poured out their frustration to Naik.
Rajanna of Arkavathy Site Allottees Association pointed out that despite the court restoring their allotted sites that had been denotified 14 months ago, the BDA had not taken any steps to hand over their sites to them. “Give us a blueprint on how you plan to go about it,” Rajanna insisted.
A B V Subramaniam, who was allotted a BDA site in Sir M Visvesvaraiah Layout 7th Block in 2004, said that when he visited the spot by 2019-end to build his house, a landowner there refused to permit him and instead claimed ownership of the property.
Mohan Reddy, a landowner in Chellakere area, alleged that 26 sites had been allotted by BDA to the public on land that did not even belong to the authority. “It is my property and I feel sorry for those allottees. So, I explained the issue with relevant documents to the BDA Commissioner today,” he said.
Meanwhile, residents of Koramangala 4th Block requested that a park be built in the Civic Amenity (CA) site earmarked for them in the area.