Residents say ‘no’ to commercialisation

Want Lok Ayukta to take action on errant landlords, officials

By Qamar ZJ

The BBMP officials need to be punished in a severe manner, so they don’t ever think of violating the rules even if their life depended on it. That’s the premise behind the recent petition by HSR residents to the Lok Ayukta. With clear proofs that the BBMP officials are looking the other way and the landlords are violating all the laws under the sun to allow commercial buildings in residential areas, the residents want to police the officials with the help of Lok Ayukta, the anti-corruption ombudsman.

In a clearly-worded letter with two examples of blatant violations, the Federation of HSR Layout Residents Welfare Associations has written to the Lok Ayukta to intervene in this matter. “The BBMP is sanctioning building plans for commercial purpose in residential areas of HSR Layout, which is in violation of the High Court order on commercialisation,” says HE Chandra Shekar, the Secretary of the Federation. “For example, the building coming up on site 2324 on 17th Cross in Sector 1 has taken a residential plan and constructing a commercial building with cargo containers on the first floor, which is dangerous to the public and not allowed in BBMP limits,” says BNR Reddy, the Chairman of the Federation. Based on a previous complaint by the residents, the construction was stopped two years ago. However, the work on it has begun again, prompting the residents to go to the Lok Ayukta this time and not the BBMP like they had done the last time around. “The BBMP authorities clearly told us that they have not given any permission this time,” says Reddy.

A similar violation of the sanction plan has occurred by the landlord of site number 2323, which is next to the cargo building. “The number of floors built is double than what is sanctioned,” says Reddy.

The Federation letter to the Lok Ayukta points out that such violations are happening across HSR Layout. “The landlords are taking commercial plan sanctions and constructing more than five floors,” the letter reads. “Construction of apartments that are more than five floors on a 30-feet road has become rampant in HSR Layout.”

Keeping the violations in mind, the Federation is requesting the anti-corruption watchdog to take action on BBMP officials and landlords and stop this extreme commercialisation and blatant building violations in HSR Layout. We reached out to both BBMP engineer Ananth Raju and BBMP Joint Commissioner Veerabhadraswamy for their response, but they didn’t get back to us at the time of going to press. We hope they remedy the situation and make life liveable in HSR. It’s better late than never.