‘Development’! This term sends chills down my spine these days! I want to just run away from this once beautiful city of Bengaluru which is being ransacked from all sides. As I drive past any highway, it is nauseating to see huge hoardings of various builders – 3 BHK, 4 BHK apartments/villas with all modern facilities such as gyms, parks, swimming pools, clubs, malls and what not for sale starting from Rs.1 crore!
‘Crore’ was a figure which I saw only in a bank’s day book when I worked for a Bank! But today all Tom, Dick and Harry are Crorepathis! The pictures on the hoardings show very posh structures and swanky surroundings. The hoardings themselves proclaim ‘project cleared by BMRDA, BDA and BBMP.’
Crime rate is increasing and with most of the younger generation having gone away to yonder lands in search of educational and occupational opportunities, the senior citizens left behind find it very cumbersome and dangerous living in huge independent bungalows.
When the builder leaves you midway
So, they sell away their beautiful heritage homes and prefer to shift to smaller apartments/villas in gated communities where they have security. And that’s what they think! The homes that they sell too face miserable ends from the hammers of greedy land-sharks. In a place where just five or six people resided once, a huge complex housing 60 to 100 residents come up! The roads are clogged, garbage mounds on the roadside grow, water becomes scarce and noise and air pollution reaches peaks.
The senior citizens then invest the money in gated communities and what happens? Everything is very romantic until they occupy the houses and the builder takes care of the maintenance. Once the builder leaves the project, starts the problem. Many shortcomings of the project come to light thereafter.
Suddenly the RWAs (Resident Welfare Associations) start receiving notices from various Government authorities stating that so many rules have been deviated, illegal structures have been built, encroachment has been made, charges under various heads have not been paid up and so on. Now, the builder has left. The RWAs are left to handle all this.
Breaching the trust of people
The owners have bought the homes trusting the builder who also gives them so many documents in support of having executed the project purely as per law. Major public sector and private sector banks also have lent their money both to the builders and the purchasers. Occupancy certificate is issued by the concerned authority.
Then, what is the meaning of all this? How can the authorities themselves go back on their own clearance certificates? Should they not have raised all the objections before issuing the certificates and before the builder is permitted to sell the property to innocent buyers? What happens to the Banks and these buyers when the BBMP demolishes structures or demands lakhs of rupees as dues/penalty from the buyers?
In the first place, individuals can hardly understand the involvement of so many departments of the same Government and the level of coordination among the departments. All they feel is that Government is one!
Trusted by all, still illegal?
The builder marches on and goes on developing project after project. Are all individual buyers so proficient to read between lines of all the documents, call for all information under RTI from all departments and then decide to invest? When institutions like Banks themselves have invested, they trust the builder and the Banks and invest. They do not have the time or energy to do all that a full time builder does. Neither is it so easy for individuals to get things done through all the departments. That is one of the reasons why they went in for such gated communities.
Projects of prominent builders like Mantri and Sobha themselves are in the news for receiving demolition notices from BBMP. What about the other small builders who are mushrooming all over the city? Who is taking care of all this? Whose responsibility is it?
25-30 feet roads are being lined up by huge apartment complexes on either side. Which visionary has issued clearance for such projects? Even a layman can say what the fate of the residents will be a few years from now! When 8-lane roads are getting clogged by the ever-increasing traffic, how can such narrow lanes take the traffic coming out of all those complexes?
Impractical rules breed illegality
BWSSB and BBMP can make rules such as – the complexes have to make their own arrangements for garbage disposal and water. But how practical are such rules? First of all the complexes are built, covering every inch of the land, leaving no space for even a blade of grass. Then where are they going to separate garbage and treat it? As a result garbage mounds are found on so many corners of the city. And water! Many of the complexes are depending upon water tankers, which is only helping the water mafia get stronger!
To add to such woes of daily living, the owners and residents have to also handle the legal notices they receive from all and sundry departments of the Government, who were supposed to have cleared the projects in the first place. You try just taking up a small repair work in your individual house and get just a pot-load of sand. The BBMP men arrive promptly on the next day, seeking for all kinds of legal documents permitting you to take that up.
But BBMP cannot see the deviations and encroachments that are happening right under their nose in huge projects. Not even when some Government authority issues occupancy certificates, which they are supposed to issue only after physical inspection! Huge lakes and vast tracts of agricultural lands have vanished. Nobody knew! How ironical. It is like hiding an elephant in a small basket!
Chaos because of Khata
Even after purchasing the property by paying up the entire cost, the purchaser is not issued a valid Khata transferred in his name. He keeps paying the tax based on his individual purchase deed and joint Khata issued to the builder supposedly under a scheme of ‘B-Khata’, about which varying clarifications keep coming up in newspapers – ‘there is no such thing as ‘B-Khata’; A-Khata will be issued only after bifurcation; there is only a Khata and nothing called ‘A’ or ‘B’ Khata.
The department’s website also does not address this issue. Then what is the actual position as on date? Why is the Khata not bifurcated even after the project is completed and before the sale of any single unit? How can the Government permit sale of property which has no clear-cut bifurcated katha in the name of individual units?
Illegal money for the government?
It is apprehended that under such circumstances, the registered sale could result in levy of double taxation on the individual unit (tax in the name of the project and tax in the name of the individual unit notionally based on undefined B-Khata practice). This amounts to unlawful gain to the Government and a chronic pain in the neck of the purchaser until the Khata bifurcation is done, which gets delayed indefinitely for various reasons which can be understood only by the Government!
It is high time the Chief Minister himself intervenes and ensures that all the rights of all his citizens are well protected. We are not living in anarchy. There are rules and guidelines laid down. Then where is the lacuna? The implementers have to be questioned. The poor purchaser, who trusted the Government departments and the builder who lures him with his swanky ads/brochures and tall talks by smart sales personnel, is definitely not the defaulter. His welfare has to be taken care of by the Government, as he pays all his taxes, cesses and charges promptly to the various departments.
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Well written, this brings out the sorry state of the property market in Blr, at least for buyers. A revamp of the system of sanction and approvals is required.
A well written article that summarizes the web of chaos that surrounds property buying not only in Bengaluru City but a situation shared across the Indian Republic. I used to be optimistic that things would change in Bengaluru whenever a new government would get formed. Alas, a decade has passed with 3 different state governments, Several BBMP Mayors, Several BBMP Commissioners etc. but still the city developed in the same way as it did the decade before. The only thing that has changed is that the chaos of the city has just expanded relative to the population increase.
The core problem is that majority elected representatives from the city have different interests than what forward looking civilized citizens of the city desire e.g. a) Ensuring uniform basic living standards i.e. Clean atmosphere, Efficient infrastructure Logical b) Single window process for Housing Titles under a Uniform Law which doesn’t change based on vote bank politics c) Logical Volume Based Housing Development & Handover.
None of the above have been accomplished till date. A reason for this is that forward looking citizens in the city are a miniscule % of population Versus the vote bank of the elected representatives. The vote bank of the politicians do not live in the swanky individual apartments/gated communities built by Shobha or Prestige but live either in slums or rent hungry layouts.
I am of the view that unless the type of people being elected radically changes, none of the issues would be permanently solved because mind you, there is benefit to a set of people in power to keep things the way they are.
I’ve shared my view on similar topic in this other post by V.T.Venkataram : http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/getting-occupancy-certificate-is-builder-s-responsibility
i feel that if consumers exercise their rights through consumer courts 90% of the problem can be solved.The builder is responsible for all the latent and patent defects even afterhe HANDS OVER CHARGE. Since the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has ruled that Brouchere issued by a builder is a part of promise. the consumers can demand the implementation of such promises. To summarise, we need a strong consumer empower movement in Karnataka ,like the ones in Andhra, Kerala, Tamilnadu and West Bengal !!!l
People are in rush to buy new apartments even before guddali pooja are done or brochure ink has dried up.. then its obvious that naidu, reddy or any contractor (with profit motive) would be interested in selling n moving to next project instead of conforming to all norms..
its time for people to relax and stop investing so much money into RE thinking that it would lead to profits.. we are in the bubble and dont knw when it would burst ! but when it does.. we would lost out hard earned money in matter of months !
There is rampant malpractices prevalent in the real estate business. Government is turning a blind eye to it. Infact, the concerned officials are hand-in-glove with in this operation. In recent months, there has been an increase in such violations. There are cases were BDA CA (Civic Amenity) sites in posh localities are being sold off as commercial sites. Unless activists and courts do not intervene, these practices will only continue unabated.
Well written article.It echoes the sentiments of many other cheated Citizens in Bangalore.Also linking Khatha issue to buyers and non payment of betterment dues by the builder is another blatant violation of law adopted by BBMP and builders.
Many times the buyers who are not aware of the violations, have to face the song from officials. These officials who take bribe from the builders upfront to allow violations later come and harrass the occupants and extort them.
As long as RE and ‘investment’ go together, this will continue to be the case. Property deals attract a lot of side business. Right from getting it booked to registering it, there’s a lucrative side business. If you are willing to spend 1 Cr, surely you can afford 0.5% for the registration. Also 0.25% for the khata please.
And the purohit would also like a 1% to do the warming. If you can spend 1 Cr for the house, surely you can spend 1 Lakh for the warming?
This is being taken to the logical end. These people all spent 1 Cr to get this house, now how much will they be willing to pay to keep this property? So once the builders move on, start the process for some random violations. Would you go to court or just cough up 10K. 5 years on a new team turns up. It is a cow to be milked periodically.
RE is an investment for everyone, owners as well as the officials.
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/140920/nation-current-affairs/article/builder-encroaches-%E2%80%98raja-kaluve%E2%80%99
Bengaluru: Three years may have passed since the High Court issued an order directing the BBMP to demolish all the storm water drain encroachments in the city. Out of several hundred encroachments identified by the civic body, it has acted against only a few small structures like tin sheds and shops. Leaving the big sharks untouched, the BBMP time and again has proved its ‘inability’ to take over big names.
A case in point: the BBMP officials of Arakere sub-division have failed to take action against a complaint by members of Classic Orchards Property Owners’ Association.
According to the complainant and president of the association, Subbu Hegde, the firm Nakoda Construction Limited is constructing an apartment complex ‘Aastha Valmark’ in Kothnur village, Uttarahalli Hobli, encroaching a raja kaluve. The builders have not only encroached the raja kaluve but have even submitted fake documents of the apartment complex.
Mr Hegde explains, “The builder has been selling the apartments by quoting the survey number 86/2 instead of Sy. No.176/2 (which is partly a government land) based on a fraudulent sale deed with M/s. Amalgamated Property Developers. Though construction started more than a year ago, permissions were taken only in January this year. The 20-gunta land (sale deed no. BNG(U)JPN-7729/2011-12 dated 25.11.2011) encroaches a raja kaluve, blocking free flow of rain water.”
The residents of Classic Orchard, who faced waterlogging problems during the rainy season, decided to act against the faulty builders. They noticed that the raja kaluve was diverted and a pipe was installed to release storm water.
Mr Hegde says, “The raja kaluve that passes through our layout was diverted by 90 degrees on the other side of the road and a 10-inch pipe was installed to let go the flood water of the raja kaluve. This adversely affected the smooth flow of flood water passing through the raja kaluve. The catchment areas for the Raja Kaluve are Kothnur village, BMTC depot and our layout.”
A complaint was filed with Narayan, assistant executive engineer, Arakere sub-division in March last year. However, due to the apathy of the officials, no action has been taken so far while constructions are in full swing. The association has now demanded that the approval for the building plan needs to be cancelled as per clause 40 of the approval.
Meanwhile, storm water drain chief engineer Ananthaswamy said he was unaware of the number of raja kaluve encroachments in the city. “I have no clue,” confessed the official.