85% of new buildings violated bylaws: BBMP survey

A whopping 85 per cent of buildings constructed in Bengaluru between January 2020 and June 2021 have violated building bylaws, according to an ongoing survey by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

The BBMP took up the survey following orders from the Karnataka High Court. Officials are inspecting 8,496 buildings, whose plans were approved in the last one -and-a-half years.

So far, 6,148 buildings were inspected and it was found that 5,223 have violated the sanctioned plan.

In the core areas of south and west zones, the BBMP had sanctioned 2,485 buildings and inspected 2,293. Officials were surprised to see that all the new buildings they inspected had violated rules.

According to the engineers, most of the violations were observed in low-rise residential buildings.

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“The high court has directed us to survey all the buildings in the city. However, considering the large numbers, we have taken up the task in phases. In the first phase, we are inspecting buildings constructed after January 2020. We are in the final stages of the survey. Once this is completed, we will start examining the buildings built from 2019 to 20,” said a senior BBMP official in the Town Planning Department.

The BBMP is also simultaneously serving notices to violators.

“The building bylaws allow a 5 per cent deviation. The violators we have identified are those who have deviated by more than 5 per cent. According to law, there is no option to legalise them. We will issue them notices, wait for their response and then pass a demolition order,” another BBMP official said.

The official said that they were awaiting the court’s directions on the action to be initiated as a large number of buildings have violated the sanctioned plan.

The high court had recently pulled up BBMP for inaction against illegal structures and had asked the authorities to expedite the process and initiate action. “We are also conducting a separate survey to identify buildings that have been constructed without an approved plan,” a BBMP official said.

However, builders said the BBMP bylaws need to a relook. “The BBMP bylaws should be relooked since many of the conditions are not technically feasible,” said Srikanth Channal, chairperson of the Association of Consulting Civil Engineers, Bengaluru.

An official in the BBMP’s Town Planning department acknowledged the problem. “There is also a need to study the bylaws of the other states. We need to analyse if there are such blatant violations in other states as well. This will help us analyse which of our laws need to be modified,” he said.

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