Rajakaluve encroachment clearance drive to resume from Jan 16: BBMP

BENGALURU: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has hastened the work related the clearance of encroachments along rajakaluve and set a fresh deadline to evict encroachments. This comes after the Revenue Department completed surveyed in 382 locations in the city.

The government and the BBMP took up a drive of clear rajakaluves of encroachments last August after deploying land surveyors, tahsildars of the Revenue Department, marshals and police personnel. Several compound walls, buildings, commercial complexes and roads were demolished.

After a pause due to interim stay orders secured by some property owners through court, the drive will now be resumed in the city.

Across Bengaluru, there are 2,626 cases of storm water drain encroachment and currently, 627 have been marked for demolition.

Palike Chief Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath said, “An important meeting was held with deputy commissioners, tahsildars, engineers, chief engineers at the BBMP headquarters on clearing the remaining encroachments. The survey work has been completed in 382 areas and the BBMP has fixed January 16 as deadline for clearing of encroachments”.

He further said, “The BBMP never stopped rajakaluve encroachment clearance drive, we are continuously doing it. We have recently cleared encroached area in Mahadevapura. We have to conduct a joint survey first, then it will be handed over to tahsildar who issues an order on the survey. Only then, the clearance drive is taken up”.

BBMP chief Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath said the encroachment clearance work will continue as before.

“We have completed almost 80 per cent of the survey work. Some survey work remains to be done in the north and east. We have set a deadline of three weeks for completing notice procedures. We have fixed timelines for all works. The encroachment drive will continue in 470 places out of total 500 places in the list”, he added.

The BBMP will start its encroachment operations from January 16 and it has been given the responsibility of clearing encroachments to the deputy commissioners concerned in the remaining 233 locations.