Yeddy Forms Task Force to Check `Land Grabbing’
From Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, July 28: While former Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy had constituted a joint legislature committee headed by his JD(S) party legislator A T Ramaswamy to unearth encroachment of valuable government lands in Bangalore city and urban districts, the present BJP chief minister B S Yeddyurappa has formed yet another high power task force under the chairmanship of retired IAS officer V Balasubramanian.

The Balasubramanian task force has been given a specific mandate not only to recover encroached government lands but also protect future encroachments of government lands in the state, Yeddyurappa announced in the state legislative assembly on Monday.

The chief minister, who was part of the Kumaraswamy-led JD(S)-BJP coalition regime as deputy chief minister, declared that the government will not hesitate to punish all those involved in encroachment of valuable government lands in the city and other parts of the state.
"We will auction the land recovered from the land grabbers,’’ he said pointing out that the money collected from the public auction of recovered government lands was ``enough to run the state administration for one whole year.’’

Yeddyurappa said the Ramaswamy committee had done a remarkable job by detecting encroachment of 33,878 acres of land belonging to various government departments worth hundreds of crores of rupees in the city and in the Bangalore urban district. ``As much as 9,033 acres of land had been recovered so far,’’he said and some of the recovered land had even been sold through public auction.

The task force was set up because there was a need to monitor the implementation of Ramaswamy committee report and ensure that such encroachments did not take place again, he said pointing out that the Subramanian committee would meet every three months and review the progress.

Principal Secretaries of Urban and Revenue departments, Commissioners of Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority, Bangalore Development Authority, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, Land Survey and Land Records, Stamps and Registration and Regional Commissioner, Bangalore are the other members of the Task Force and the Managing Director of Karnataka Public Lands Commission would be its member-secretary, he said.

The chief minister’s statement that the Government had received the final report "unofficially"on September 21, 2007, led to a controversy with opposition members contending that only two interim reports had been submitted. ``If the final report has been submitted as claimed by the chief minister, it should be immediately tabled in the house,’’ Congress opposition leader Siddaramaiah demanded.

Members cutting across party lines welcomed the decision on constitution of the task force and said encroached lands in the city should be recovered to keep for public purposes.

The chief minister regretted that the Karnataka Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Bill 2007, which sought to declare land grabbing as unlawful andl provides for special courts to try land-grabbing cases, was yet to receive the assent of President Pratibha Patil.

Both houses of the State Legislature passed the Bill to prohibit people operating individually and in groups in grabbing lands belonging to the State Government, local authorities, religious or charitable institutions either by force or by deceit, he said.

Congress Opposition leader Siddaramaiah, T B Jayachandra, Roshan Baig, N L Narendra Babu (all Congress), C T Ravi, Yogish Bhat (BJP), H D Revanna and C S Putte Gowda (JD-S) wanted to know from the government what action it had taken against all those powerful people indulged in land grabbing in the City.

They demanded tabling of the final report of the Ramaswamy committee and list of persons involved in the land grabbing. The government should ensure that all the recovered land was dedicated for development as playgrounds, parks and other public purposes, Congress deputy leader Jayachandra said.

Siddaramaiah and Baig alleged that several influential persons have encroached lands and created fake records in collusion with land grabbers.