'Encroached lake land worth Rs 24K cr'

JD(S) floor leader H D Kumaraswamy on Friday alleged rampant encroachment of lakes in Bangalore and demanded the State government to order a CBI probe into it and ensure that the encroachers were punished.

Participating in a debate for grants under the Urban Development department in the Assembly, he said about 1,039 acres of lake land have been encroached upon between 2006 and 2011 in Bangalore.

The market value of the encroached land is estimated at a whopping Rs 24,000 crore, he added.

He gave a sort of recap on the N Lakshman Rau report suggesting measures to revive the lakes and the A T Ramaswamy committee report which had exposed land and lake grabbing cases and also observations made by the CAG on encroachment of tanks.

Number of influential people, including politicians, have reportedly encroached upon lakes by creating fictitious documents.

For instance, part of Byrasandra Lake in Uttarahalli hobli has been encroached and was even pledged to Indian Overseas Bank by using fictitious documents.

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had turned a blind eye despite media reporting about the encroachment.

The BBMP commissioner had initially refused to believe that the encroached land was part of the lake.

The encroachers had defaulted repayment to the Bank, which, as a result, had taken measures to auction it. Finally, the BBMP woke up and it is now taking measures to recover the land.

The lake land was handed over to the BBMP by the Forest department for developing mini forest, he added.

Similarly, a person named Munivenkatappa had encroached upon Pattandur Agrahara lake in Bangalore east taluk by using fictitious documents in 1995.

A civil court had also ruled in his favour on a civil suit. The Revenue department did not take any action to recover the encroached land despite requests from the local officials.

Later, the Tahasildar concerned himself took up the case, hired his own advocate and won the case in favour of the government, he explained.

The then Legislature committee to look into encroachments of government land in Bangalore Urban district has submitted a detailed report to the government.

The report has several instances of lake encroachments. Besides, the N Laksham Rau committee had in 1985 probed the status of Bangalore lakes and submitted a report. But so far no action has been taken in this regard.

A meeting held on October 3 last year which was headed by the chief minister, it was pointed out that of the 3,578 tanks belonging to the minor irrigation department, 1,054 have been encroached upon. In the BMRDA limits, 2,789 lakes fall and the BDA has 596 lakes under its purview. But majority of these have been shrunk.

Kumaraswamy submitted both these reports, original maps of several lakes and photographs of the encroachments to Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa.

The former chief minister further said instead of taking action against big land sharks and recover its property, the forest department has been taking action against farmers in rural areas.

Though a bill was passed in the legislature to take strict action against land grabbers, it has been pending before the President of India for his assent.

The Congress government has not taken any measure to get the President’s assent, he charged.

The chief minister is likely to reply to Kumaraswamy’s allegations on Monday.