Six years on, residents of the former slum in Hosakerehalli have not been compensated as the officials allegedly sold the plots allocated to them to other entities for higher prices.
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The Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA), the planning authority for the city, seems to be riddled with multi-crore scams. Not a month ago, one of its former officials B Sudha was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau in a land-allocation scam. On Tuesday, the BDA’s vigilance team sent show-cause notices to 10 of its officers, including Karnataka Administrative Services (KAS) officers, for allegedly illegally allocating land — originally meant for the residents of a former slum in Bengaluru’s Hosakerehalli — to other entities for a higher price. The BDA officials said that the scam is worth Rs 140 crore. The BDA Commissioner HR Mahadev has issued show-cause notices to former BDA Deputy Secretary-3 Bhaskar; another former Deputy Secretary Anil Kumar who is currently the land acquisition officer of Karnataka Industrial Development Board; B Sudha, former Deputy Secretary-1 and current administrator of the IT-BT Department; supervisor V Mahadevamma; retired second assistant Muni Bachchegowda; supervisor MV Kamala; subject manager Sanjay Kumar; second division assistant Venkataramanappa who is currently under suspension; supervisor Ashwath Narayana; and former supervisor KM Ravishankar, who is currently in the Revenue Department. BDA sources said that the agency began probing cases undertaken by B Sudha after the ACB raided several of her properties and found huge amounts of unaccounted gold and cash, in addition to property documents in her possession. The BDA Commissioner has asked for explanations regarding the alleged misallocation of land and the alleged fraud in selling plots that were meant for former slum residents, which were sold to other parties. How the slum rehabilitation scam came to light Six years ago, the BDA had demolished hutments in Hosakerehalli, located in Banashankari 3rd stage in Bengaluru. At the time, the BDA had promised to allocate land elsewhere to the people who were living in these hutments. Six years on, the true beneficiaries, the residents of the former slum in Hosakerehalli, have not been compensated as the officials allegedly sold the plots allocated to these beneficiaries to other entities for higher prices. With the beneficiaries knocking on the state government’s door on multiple occasions, the BDA had responded, in 2017 and 2018, that it was verifying whether the persons who registered for the compensation plan were legitimate. However, last week, the BDA’s vigilance team conducted a search at a production house located on Cunningham Road and found that documents pertaining to 60 plots of land, which were to be allocated to the beneficiaries who were evicted from Hosakerehalli, were in possession of the production company. BDA sources said that the land was being sold “illegally” at higher prices. “Each year, over the last six years, these officers would submit new lists of beneficiaries for the rehabilitation plan. Every year, the number of beneficiaries increased. In 2019, it was 541, when the actual number of people who were supposed to get the land was 180. These people have not received the land. The officials to whom the notices were sent kept updating the beneficiary list and would get it signed by higher-ups, who did not verify whether these were the actual beneficiaries. This list kept getting updated every time a new BDA Commissioner was appointed,” the source said. BDA Commissioner HR Mahadev said that the BBMP is in the process of filing a police complaint against the 10 officials, after which a first information report (FIR) would be registered.
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