BDA may allot plots to farmers within their own property

Bengaluru: A high-level meeting that lasted eight hours at the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) headquarters discussed giving farmers who lost their land a share of the developed land on their own property and using the randomisation technique to assign them land as compensation.

Although computerised randomisation is used to assign BDA sites, a BDA official who attended the lengthy discussion with the top officials of all departments claimed that this would be the first time that land losers would be given the opportunity to switch land in this way.

"At the moment, land losers watch as their land, sometimes in ideal locations, is assigned to others while they receive compensation sites in some remote region," the official said. "They would be satisfied if at least 10–20% of the site of the land they lost was given to them. This mechanism is being proposed to ensure justice," he added.

In order to improve services to the public, BDA Commissioner Kumar G. Naik, who presided over the meeting, urged for improved coordination across the organisation's many wings. In order to address the problems as quickly as possible, he remarked, "I took stock of the issues faced by the allottees in Arkavathy and Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout."

"The commissioner was keen that all our processes go online so that the public need not visit the BDA office in connection with any work," an official who was present at the meeting said. Naik also urged all officials to develop a plan that would speed up all BDA projects as soon as possible.