Bengaluru has grown haphazardly due to increasing money power and an ever-increasing influx of people from across India.
A cluster of homes, from low-rise to high-rise, crowd the Sarjapur area of Bangalore, India. In November 2016, the Indian government declared currency notes of 500 and 1000 rupees as illegal, hitting the construction industry, which was already facing low demand. Demand for residential buildings is now expected to pick up in 2017 with budget incentives from the federal government.
If there is unanimity on one issue in Karnataka, it is to give legal status to illegal structures and houses that have come up in Bengaluru violating bylaws over the years. Since 2004, successive governments have directly or indirectly lobbied for amendments to the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act to legalize the illegality of land and structures.
The provisions under the Act are more contentious in Bengaluru than in other towns and cities in Karnataka. All the debates about this issue boil down to Bengaluru, where land prices, guidance value, property tax, and housing scarcity have touched the zenith.
Politicians’ intentions and the pathetic performance of civic agencies have not given civic groups any confidence in the government’s efforts to provide legal status to unlawful activities, even if it is a one-time measure with a penalty.
The Act, known as the Akrama-Sakrama, has existed for two decades. This issue will remain alive if the courts don’t decide whether something illegal should become legal en masse.
Bengaluru-based not-for-profit organizations have challenged the amendments to the Act in the Karnataka High Court and Supreme Court.
Whose interest would the Akrama-Sakrama serve—politicians, property owners, or both? Should law-abiding citizens be mute spectators for the wholesale approval of illegalities or building law violations of all scales? Will the city be less chaotic by giving the tags of legality to the buildings? The answer can be neither straight nor simple.
The issue is being discussed again. Revenue Minister Krisha Byregowda stated in the Assembly on 19 February that there are hints that the Supreme Court may reject the Akrama-Sakrama case, which intends to regularize illegal construction in the state.
After comprehensive media coverage of his concerns, Krishna Byregowda insisted that the media failed to understand his meaning. He also said he would know what the court’s decision would be! Instead of doubting the media’s understanding capability, it would have been good if the minister had restrained himself from commenting on the court hall deliberations based on the account given by the government lawyers. The discussions are supposed to remain confidential.
The scheme is more significant for Bengaluru, where at least three lakh properties are supposed to be illegal or violate the norms. So far, there has been no scientific evaluation of the violations committed by each house owner. However, different government agencies have identified encroachments on public places by big builders.
Former Revenue Minister R Ashoka once stated that the government would get about ₹20,000 crore by giving legal status to illegal structures in Bengaluru. But what has prevented the government from demolishing the already-identified apartments blocking drainages, roads, footpaths, and encroaching lakebeds? The existing laws are sufficient to pull down the illegal structures.
This shows that the government is keen on collecting penalties from small and medium-sized house owners rather than antagonizing the real estate mafia.
Minister for Transport Ramalinga Reddy, who began his journey as a Bengaluru city corporator, says, “Nearly 98.5 percent of buildings violate the norms. In my 40-year political journey, I have hardly seen private buildings demolished for violations. It is better to regularize and be done with it.”
Building properties without government sanctions and land conversion in violation of the Town and Planning Act is not limited to Bengaluru. Even Chennai and Mumbai are witnessing legal battles over unregulated construction. Telangana is keen to regularise illegal structures.
But everywhere, the issue is entangled in legal proceedings. Bengaluru has grown haphazardly due to increasing money power and an ever-increasing influx of people from across India. With any number of laws, rules, and civic bodies, it is not possible to achieve orderly growth, even in newly developed areas, thanks to greedy politicians and bureaucrats.
Tracking the history of Akrama–Sakrama, a book can be written that sheds light on how politicians, irrespective of their party affiliations, will never give up their vested interests when it comes to land in a city like Bengaluru. For the past twenty years, the government has been trying to make some amendments to the Act instead of finding an alternative route.
After many changes to the Act, the government went before the court, saying it would collect a one-time penalty for deviations of up to 50 percent in residential buildings and up to 25 percent in commercial buildings. It is silent on what action would be taken against officers who permitted the violations.
Some organizations, including the Citizens Action Forum (CAF) and Namma Bengaluru Foundation, backed by Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekar, challenged the Akrama-Sakrama scheme in the Supreme Court in 2017. The NBF toned down its argument in 2022 by writing to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai that it had no objection to the scheme as long as it did not benefit builders.
Even after two decades, the problem remains. Strangely, the government is not trying to scout for an intelligent and scientific way to find a solution other than collecting crores of rupees as a penalty. There is an acute shortage of affordable houses for the city’s poor and the middle class. If the gap between demand and supply is filled, then schemes like Akrama-Sakrama will have no place in future.
Urban expert Ashwin Mahesh says the government must ensure adequate legally built homes, and the City Master Plan should be implemented to prevent further messing up the city. V Balasubramanian, a retired IAS officer, says the government must distinguish between those who obey the law and those who violate it. It should have the courage to pull down structures that have violated the rule. He says such buildings may not exceed 13 lakh.
One thing is sure: the government has failed to demarcate land for different uses despite the Akrama-Sakrama embroil. It has not learned any wise lesson because it is still in a mood to control every individual’s life rather than putting up a large umbrella under which land and building problems are seen in the present context, where there is a paucity of land for housing.
However, it is more interested in penalizing individuals than finding a solution that helps owners whom builders or officers have conned. Why are the heads not rolling in the government for encouraging illegality? It looks like everybody on the government side enjoys violations and illegality for their benefit.
Encroachments of tank beds, footpaths, and public places are only increasing while government agencies are just mute spectators. The Akrama-Sakrama scheme seems outdated because it does not solve the present mess. It is time to change the bylaws and implement them with retrospective effect. Imposing a penalty can never be a deterrent factor.
There is a need for a paradigm shift out of the Inspector Raj system. Of course, in the last twenty years, the government has not realized its approach to the issue is incorrect.
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