Was the Karnataka government informed properly about the layout formation on lake bed?
22 Dec, 2013
The reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that the state government of Karnataka might have been misinformed regarding the layout of the Venkatarayana Lake.
The reply to the application, provided by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), shows that a proposal was submitted to the state government 10 years ago regarding the acquisition of land for Banashankari 6th Stage Extension. In the proposal, it was mentioned that survey No. 8 of Gubbalala village in Uttarahalli hobli was recorded as a government kharaab land. The same was notified by the government in its gazette. The RTI reply shows that the BDA officials claimed to go through some records which mentioned the lake as kharaab land but they ignored the records of Rights, Tenancy and Crop (RTC) which even today shows the lake to be a government lake.
It has been claimed that the district administration already knew that survey no. 8 was a lake and that due to deposition of debris, the lake was severely encroached but nothing was done in this respect.