GENRE: In Focus

BDA can no longer work on the five grade separator projects planned in Koramangala. On February 27th, High Court ordered a stay based on a PIL filed by Koramangala residents. Pic: Deepthi M S Residents had been in discussions with BDA for over six months to re-consider flyover and underpass projects at Koramangala water tank, Krupanidhi college, 80-feet road - Sarjapur road intersection and Jakkasandra junctions. These works alone cost Rs 120 cr. This is part of the larger signal-free corridor project from Agara to Sirsi Circle, planned by BBMP in 2009. The project is implemented by BDA.Residents had filed…

Maverick Holdings and BBMP signed a concessionaire agreement on 2 January, 2012, clearing the deck for the construction of 1,640 Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quarters at Ejipura. This is coming after a protracted legal battle that lasted nine years. The agreement was signed between Uday Garudachar of Maverick and BBMP Engineer in Chief BT Ramesh. Pic: Vijayalakshmi P But the residents still do not know where they will be relocated when the construction starts. Neither the BBMP nor Maverick has informed them about the relocation plans. And on January 14, Shantinagar MLA NA Harris had a shocking request to make…

Residents of Golden Blossom apartment in Kadugodi, Bengaluru, have gone to court against the builder for not providing promised facilities on time. In their petition to the state Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, residents say that Golden Gate Properties Ltd (GGPL) had promised them about 35 facilities such as club houses, sports complexes, super market etc., but has not delivered most of these. They also claim that quality of construction of existing facilities is poor. Golden Blossom apartment houses around 500 families. Pic: Ajiyos Yohannan Golden Blossom Apartment Owners Association (GBAOA) filed the complaint in December. Hearings are on at Consumer…

An analysis of a mere 169 city property tax returns between 2008-10 by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) found that Bengaluru had lost over Rs.200 crores in revenues. 25 software companies alone accounted for Rs.90 crores of this. The fault: BBMP officials had not done any cross-verification on the self-assessment based tax filings.   Further, CAG's audit of BBMP balances in over 600 bank accounts found out that it had left hundreds of crores of rupees lying in temporary accounts during 2008-10 without transferring the money to the main bank branches. Without this, the funds could be…

No Cauvery here: In the backdrop is the Army Welfare Housing Organisation's towering 1000-plus flat community under construction, opposite Chaithanya Samarpan, off the Whitefield Hoskote Road. Samarpan's security entrance is in foreground. Both communities don't have BWSSB connections and rely tanker and borewell water currently. Pic: Subramaniam Vincent. Some of the residential and commercial complexes in the peripheral Whitefield area of Bengaluru are likely to see better times. They will get water supply once the second phase of Hoodi reservoir is completed, probably by August or September this year, an official with BWSSB has said. Rapid growth, no water Two…

Susheela, a vegetable vendor at Gandhi Bazaar who was thrown out on Jan 23rd, is one of those who was allowed to return on February 9th by city councillor P N Sadashiva. Pic: Vijayalakshmi P. After being thrown out by BBMP on January 23rd, vendors of Gandhi Bazaar, Basavanagudi have set up shops again on February 9th. "Yesterday the police constables chased us, but today they allowed us. But how about compensation?", asks Venkatappa, a 35-year-old florist. The vendors allege that the BBMP never gave them any notice.The trader's association of Gandhi Bazaar had a list which was used by…

Gollahalli lake in Electronic city has lost 2.11 acres to an illegally built road. Despite orders, the road still stands intact thanks to the timely call by the then Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa. Road that encroaches on the Gollahalli lake. Pic: Sankar C G The then Tehsildar Mallikarjuna ordered the road to be dismantled in 2010. The road, which covers about one-fourth of the 9.2-acre Golahalli Lake, is still in use today.  According to the records obtained through RTI, survey number 15 is a lakebed and it belongs to the government. However, a road was constructed in 2007. The…

In a major ruling, the High Court has ordered that commercial buildings not be allowed in residential zones in Bangalore from now on. The court passed the interim order on January 25th in a case filed by Citizens' Action Forum (CAF), Sadashivnagar RWA and 12 individuals in 2008. Petitioners had challenged BDA's Revised Master Plan (RMP 2005-2015), based on which land use zones are demarcated. A division bench of the court lead by Chief Justice Vikramjit Sen asked the government to go back the city's master plan of 1995-2005 for limits on commercial activity in residential areas. News of this…

Parks have turned out to be the new ‘play' area for BBMP. Work order was issued in 2008-09 for installing play equipments for twenty lakh rupees at the first block park (earlier known as Wipro park). The equipments were however not installed till December 2011. The palike has spent over one crore rupees (1,30,48,825) on the Koramangala 1st block park between 2007 and 2010. Most of which is for the work that was never done. The play equipments in 1st block Park were not installed for three years. Pic; Padmalatha Ravi In the era multi-crore scams this might seem like…

Garbage collection in the city is currently broken because BBMP is not awarding long overdue new tenders. Contractors have been jamming the July 2011-initiated tender process with objections for months now. A Citizen Matters inquiry has exposed that BBMP has diluted the terms of engagement several times in past two months. Pourakarmikas manually handling the garbage in Richmond Town. Pic: Kathyayini Chamaraj A clause which mandated the contractor to submit monthly records of door-to-door collection to BBMP in electronic format, was removed in December. Another clause which imposed a 10-15% of monthly contract value as penalty for one offence of…