Banaswadi, rebuilding a lake

The dramatic demolition of houses and commercial complexes built on the Banaswadi lakebed has sparked a huge, city-wide storm.

Bengaluru’s realty boom might have triggered a gold rush for private builders. But it has also led BDA, a government agency, to redefine development by blatantly forming layouts on lake beds.

This, it transpires now, has been at the cost of both the city’s environment and buyers, who reposed their collective faith on a ‘trustworthy’ agency.

The wave of dramatic demolitions over the last fortnight has clearly brought to the fore the audacity of the violations.

Violating all rules, ignoring every recommendation by expert committees on lakes, the agency carved out 20 such layouts. Banaswadi lake may be just one such case, but it clearly exposes the dynamics of an encroachment that carries an official stamp.

Disappearing lakes and lake beds have dangerously depleted the city’s water and groundwater sources. For private players and BDA, the killing of forest land in Bada Manvarthe Kaval and Thurahalli, the encroachment of stormwater drains, hillocks, pasture land and other B Kharab land have all been part of a highly questionable ‘development’ agenda.

Site-allottees in trouble
For BDA site-allottees who reposed faith in a government agency, the disclosure about the Banaswadi lake has naturally come as a shocker. But they wouldn’t be, if they were aware of a crackdown by Bengaluru urban district authorities to reclaim, revive and rejuvenate encroached tanks. It was found that besides private encroachers, BDA was equally guilty.

The equation has become so telling that the recent crackdown on phoney land grabbers in Banaswadi had enraged residents of the ‘illegal’ revenue layouts question the ‘discrimination.’ Why target only them, when a BDA layout existed on the same lakebed, they asked aloud.

Here’s what Kamala, a Banaswadi resident whose shed was bulldozed, wanted to know: “When Banaswadi is a lake and the existing laws do not allow any construction activity on the lake land, why are the houses on the layout formed by BDA on the tank bed intact, and ours demolished? Why should there be any discrimination against us?”
Applying the same logic, another resident Rajanna asserts, “If these BDA layout residents are entitled to compensation due to the bogus records created by the BDA, so are we. We too are the victims of bogus records.”

Permission not sought
But what is deeply worrying is the blatant manner in which the lakebeds were taken over. Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner V Shankar recalls that BDA had never sought any permission or clarification while acquiring the Banaswadi land.
Shankar explains, “Rules mandate that after selecting land for layout formation, BDA should seek our (district administration’s) permission. After verifying records, we give the necessary permission and transfer the land. But in the case of Banaswadi land, all these procedures were not followed.”

Residents are understandably angry because they had paid hefty amounts at every stage to get their land registered, khata issued, building plan sanctioned and taxes cleared.
In frustration, a resident asks, “How can a person know that there is a problem with the property that he/she is trying to buy, when the documents are made to look so genuine? Let them first compensate the house-owners a thousand times for the fault of all the officials concerned.”

Banaswadi lake is spread across an area of 42 acres and 39 guntas. Of this, 17 acres have been encroached upon. BDA has acquired 14 acres and 38 guntas to form a total of 190 sites, parks, playgrounds, civic amenity sites and other facilities.

Court cases
The eventual fate of Banaswadi and many other encroached lakebeds is dependent heavily on the ongoing court cases and Upa Lokayukta Justice Subhash B Adi. Hearing cases related to lake encroachments, the latter is also faced with the challenging task of estimating the number of BDA layouts on lakebeds.

BDA had earlier told Justice Adi that only three layouts were formed that way. But the figure was later escalated to 10, eventually settling for 14. However, on May 5, Deputy Commissioner Shankar gave a list of 20 lakes on which the BDA had formed layouts.
So, what next for the BDA site allottees, who now live in uncertainty? What about the thousands who had invested their life-time savings on building their dream houses? Compensation is one option that has been talked about. But is that a viable option?

Compensation
The State government is in a fix. Additional Chief Secretary of the Urban Development Department B Satya Murty has already gone on record, submitting before Justice Subhash Adi that compensating the house-owners would cost the State exchequer a whopping Rs 15,000 crore.

Struggling to find a way out of this imbroglio, the government has mooted a policy to divide the city lakes under three categories: Functional, semi-functional lakes and dead lakes.

The measure is aimed at regularizing layouts formed on dead lakes, while reviving the functional and semi-functional lakes.

But there is a problem with this approach. What about lakes that were deliberately killed by choking their stormwater drains and dumping debris on catchment areas? What about the water bodies that were killed after 1995, when the High Court directed the State to protect all lakes?

There could be a third approach. The State is reportedly planning to bring an amendment to the Karnataka Lake Conservation and Development Authority Bill, 2014 to regularise buildings constructed on lakebeds that do not exist on the ground. The contention is this: Many lakes are found only in government records and could be categorised as ‘dead.’