On 1st December, B N Vijay Kumar, MLA(BJP), Jayanagar constituency (which includes Jayanagar and JP Nagar), distributed pamphlets to all residents of his constituency asking them to inform him if they find vacant sites which is not protected by either the BBMP or BDA.

Vijay Kumar says that he often gets complaints from his constituents about unused government land being misused or getting encroached upon. To verify the complaints, he went around his constituency and found that there were a lot of unprotected land sites owned by government or city corporation, which were not fenced or marked, near BBMP parks, BDA complexes, government hospitals and so on. “These were either used as garbage dumping grounds, left vacant or some private parties had started constructing on them,” he adds.

The rampant misuse and encroachment got him asking what the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) and Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) were doing to protect these sites. “Do they even know about such sites?” he questions. Now he has requested the people of his constituency to inform him about all such sites.

He plans to collect and analyse all the information about the sites by the end of this month. “I will wait to get responses from the people and, next month, I will take the list to BBMP and BDA and ask them to take action on it”, he says. He feels the vacant land can be used for parks and people who have encroached should be punished and taxes collected from them.

Vijay Kumar mentions, “There are already around 15 complaints from people. Out of which, most are about land being used as garbage dumping ground and 4-5 cases of encroachments.” He is looking for support from BBMP and BDA for this initiative.

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