Bangalore is one of the fastest
growing cities of India. The reasons for such a fast growth could be
attributable mainly to the development of I.T. hub, pleasant climatic
conditions and better educational and employment opportunities. Because of high
influx of people to the city, there is a great demand for house and house sites in Bangalore. This, in turn, has lead to the steep rise in
the property values here.
Building bye-laws are introduced
to regulate construction activities, to prevent construction of buildings in a
haphazard manner and to provide better civic amenities. Zoning regulations are
also introduced with the same motive and to regulate the land use, control of density of population and to
develop the city in an orderly way. However, these building bye-laws and zonal
regulations are not strictly followed by the people presumably on the ground
that the restrictions imposed are nothing but hindrance in exploitation of the property to the full extent and thereby they construct their buildings at their
will. In so doing, they do not mind to forego certain prescribed civic
amenities such as having broader roads,
playgrounds, parks and other
civic amenities.
Broadly, we may classify the
violations into three categories viz., violation of Floor Area ratio, violation
of site set back and violation of plot coverage. Violation of any one of these
three violations would deprive the land owner of completion certificate.
Floor Area Ratio (F.A.R) is
prescribed separately for intensely developed area, moderately developed area
and sparsely developed area. Earlier, F.A.R. used to be high in more intensely
developed central areas in view of land values and lower F.A.R. in the suburbs
where land values are less. But presently it is on the reverse pattern and the
policy is to fix less F.A.R. in the central area to enable decongestion and
higher F.A.R in the suburbs to encourage development where the traffic and
other problems are less.
The building bye-laws prescribe
for certain set backs on sides of the
building to facilitate the people to have proper light, ventilation, privacy
and to save them from dust and traffic noise. While framing the building
bye-laws, the civic authorities also keep in mind the future land requirements
for broadening roads. It is noticed that people violate building bye-laws by
way of additional floor construction, site set back construction, providing
stair case on the site set back area, balcony area to be converted into living
rooms.
The Zonal Regulations of the
Comprehensive Development Plan of
Bangalore prescribe different land uses like; residential, commercial, land for
civic amenities etc., for systematic development of the locality. But, it is
noticed that the residential buildings situated along the main roads and the
roads nearer to commercial area are developed and utilized as commercial property. Even several industries also do crop up in these localities in gross
violation of zonal regulations. Similarly, residential or commercial buildings
do crop up in civic amenities sites meant for parks, play grounds, schools,
green belt areas etc.
If a part of the building is constructed with deviations, the
owners of such property hesitate to approach the plan sanctioning authorities whenever they intend to put up
further construction on the property for
approval of sanction plans for the
reason that deviations will be noticed during inspection by these authorities
and thereby proceed to make further construction without the sanction plan.
Such people try to develop rapport with the concerned municipal authorities and
put up additional constructions without sanction plan.
The reason for violation of building bye-laws and sanction plans by the people is that most of the land
owners/builders want to exploit their land to an optimum extent because the
residential and commercial properties do fetch high return. Presently, in Bangalore there is a steep rise
in land value, say Rs.5,000/- per sq.ft. on an average.
In a large number of cases,
deviations and violations take place with the active support of the officials
and the local politicians. Only in rare cases when it is brought to the notice
of the competent authority of deviations, action would be initiated by the
concerned authorities against which
action the land owners knock the doors of the courts and in many such cases courts do grant stay. Thereupon, the building owners do enjoy the
property for long period despite violation of the bye-laws since it would take
long time for the court to dispose of the matter.
Violation of bye-laws, deviations
of sanction plan, zonal regulations etc., cannot be allowed to be continued for
long since it is an unhealthy trend. Therefore, the following suggestions may
help in curbing violations of the bye-laws etc.
The building byelaws and zonal
regulations of the Comprehensive Development Plan should be user friendly and acceptable to the
majority of the public. Further, the byelaws should not consist of too many
technical jargons but should be simple to enable the common man to understand
and follow. Byelaws should be suitable to the local conditions failing which
there would be violation of such laws.
When once user friendly building bye-laws with simplified procedure for sanction of building plans are introduced, there should be deterrent
punishment if the property owners deliberately deviate from the sanctioned plan or construct their
buildings without the sanction of the competent authority. It may be kept in mind that unless strict
enforcement of the zonal regulations and building bye-laws is carried out in
letter and spirit, there is every likelihood of people violating even the user
friendly byelaws.
Construction of a building generally takes not less than a year. During this time, frequent visit by the
concerned area engineer and supervisor
to find out whether the construction is according to sanction plan etc., would
prevent violations of the regulations by the land owners. Instead of this, the municipal authorities
conduct raids after several years of such construction putting the people to a
great hardship and embarrassment. To avoid such a situation, strict enforcement of visit by the concerned engineer
must be introduced and if any deviations are noticed later on, the concerned
engineer should be made accountable for allowing such deviations and action
initiated against him for dereliction of his official duty.
As a one time relief, for the
existing buildings all deviations in building bye-laws, plans and zonal
regulations could be permitted with different slabs of penalty for such
violations. The higher the violation, more the penalty. Once user friendly
bye-laws are introduced, there should be no leniency whatsoever and every
deviation should be punished with severe penalty.
The building bye-laws need
revision whenever there is change in the C.D.P. of the city. The committee
constituted to prepare the bye-laws should comprise of not only the experts in
the field but also the different sections of the public so that the matter
could get debated from different angles before arriving at a conclusion.
Thereupon, the draft bye-laws should be circulated amongst the public to solicit
the views and suggestions from people of different walks of life. The print and
visual media can play a greater role in this regard. A team of technical officials consisting of town planners, architects, and civil
engineers can be formed to educate the people on the need for adherence of the
byelaws while at the same enlightening
the public of the punishment for violations. Similarly, area committees
consisting of revered citizens and the representative of the residents welfare
associations may be constituted to monitor
violations.
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