Rain havoc: It’s time for tough action

The torrential rains in Bengaluru have resulted in inundated lakes, flooded roads and houses and, in fact, entire localities have got marooned, causing a terrible loss of property, damage to vehicles, at least one life lost and untold misery and inconvenience to people. The rain fury has left eight lakes overflowing, flooding roads and more than 5,000 houses, apartment buildings and offices.

It is intriguing that most of the havoc has been in the new layouts on and around the Outer Ring Road (ORR) -- Marathahalli, Sarjapur Road, Bellandur, Varthur, Munnekollala, etc., where most of the high rise apartments, IT offices, paying guest accommodations have mushroomed in the last 10-20 years. The recent rains, as well as earlier episodes, have only exposed the collapse of the city’s road, lake and utility infrastructures and our incapability to handle such grave situations.

Watch | Disrupting lives, Bengaluru rains intensify

Who is to blame?

All the stakeholders are to blame -- government authorities, the BBMP and the parastatals like BWWSB and BESCOM, but especially the greedy builders and the indifferent owners of properties and offices who have together connived in the building of structures that violate the conditions of sanctioned plans and building by-laws with gay abandon. Residential and commercial buildings, huge offices, malls and hotels have been built throwing all rules and regulations to the wind.

Most of these structures are along and off ORR, where high-end villas, gated communities, high-rise apartments and paying guest facilities have mushroomed with building plan violations, such as construction of units without proper “setbacks”, construction on stormwater drains, additional floors under TDR schemes, encroachments on ‘rajakaluves’ choking the flow of rainwater. Stormwater drains are choked with silt, garbage and industrial wastes, suffocating and polluting the entire ecosystem around them.

Corrective steps

All constructions encroaching on ‘rajakaluves’ must be demolished without yielding to pressures. The authorities must take courage from the court-ordered demolition of the Supertech twin towers in Noida. What is required is political will, which has been lacking so far.

All commercial and residential constructions, especially in areas that face high risk of flooding such as Marathahalli, Sarjapur Road, Bellandur, Varthur and Munnekollala, that have been built in violation of sanctioned building plans and by-laws must be demolished without giving scope to owners to approach the courts and delay matters. If they are in violation of sanctioned plans, they deserve to be brought down.

The government must not attempt to bring these illegal constructions -- residential or commercial -- under any regularisation plan, such as the proposed ‘Akrama-Sakrama’ scheme.

No compensation must be provided to the builders and owners of these illegal structures who are responsible for choking Bengaluru, holding the city to ransom as it were. Taxpayers’ money must not be wasted on rehabilitation of these layouts, except in deserving cases with respect to slum-dwellers and poor families and those who have suffered due to these illegal constructions but are not themselves responsible for the violations.

Rather, the erring builders, property owners, corporates and the officials involved, who are all responsible for the current state of affairs, must be booked, penalised and blacklisted. They must be made to cough up compensation amounts to those who have suffered due to their greed and indifference. Insurance companies must repudiate claims where the loss or damages are on account of building violations.

These tough measures are required so as to send out a strong warning to greedy builders and property owners and to the corporates who think they can get away with housing their offices in buildings that violate norms because they “contribute substantially to the state GDP.” The government must not buckle under the pressure of companies that are threatening to relocate to other states.

Preventive steps

The government must immediately appoint a high-level panel drawn from the Revenue, Finance, Urban Planning, Forest and Fire departments, the RERA authorities, the BBMP and parastatals and give it the mandate and authority to revisit every high-rise building, whatever the stage of construction (built, under construction or awaiting plan approvals), and take steps to ensure that the constructions are as per approved building plans and to demolish illegal portions or clear encroachments forthwith, along with levying heavy penalties on wrongdoers.

A single-window approval mechanism must be set up for all construction activities with a list of compliances that need to be observed and checked. The construction activity should be periodically inspected by specially-appointed taskforces drawn from various departments.

RERA, which is currently toothless, must be empowered. Banks, HFCs, advocates and panel valuers who are involved in lending and activities related to construction should be made accountable.

(The writer is a former banker)

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)