BENGALURU: The Bangalore Development Authority cautioned the public not to buy sites or houses from 279 unauthorised layouts in the city. It released the entire list on its website on Saturday in a bid to create awareness about them among the public.
Illegal layouts refer to agricultural land that have been converted into residential ones without following these three steps: taking the requisite permission for conversion from BDA for change of land use, consent of the Deputy Commissioner for conversion and the BDA’s approval for layout formation, said BDA Town Planning Member L Shashikumar.
The TPM said, “Public who are investing so much money to buy sites or houses in any layout should cross-check all these aspects. We repeatedly urge the public to carry out these checks to ensure their property is legal.” Most of these illegal layouts are vacant sites with roads, drains, site numbers and other infrastructure in place with few of them having houses built on them, he added.
A senior Town Planning Member told TNIE, “Of the 279 layouts, 52 are in Bidarahalli Hobli, 16 are in Yelahanka Hobli, 29 are in Jala Hobli, 41 in Kengeri, 4 in Uttarahalli, 53 in Jigani, 14 in Begur, 5 in KR Puram, 29 in Sarjapur and 8 in Varthur.”
Giving details, Shashikumar said, “A special team was constituted comprising members of the TPM department as well as engineer attached to the Engineer Member’s department to arrive at the exact number of illegal layouts within the BBMP and BDA limits.”
He added, “Many seek approval from the panchayat and they give the consent though they are not authorised to do so. If water supply and electricity are not provided to layouts which are not illegal, it would be easy to control them.” Illegal layouts or buildings are demolished when detected but there is no specific law to punish them.