Inquire into land grabbing in Bangalore: Committee tells govt.

Bangalore, Sept 14 (UNI) The Fact Finding Committee looking into cases of land grabbing in and around Bangalore City today asked the state government to open a full fledged inquiry to bring to light the land acquired illegally by Housing Cooperatives.

Committee Chairman A T Ramaswamy told reporters here today that the housing cooperative had indulged in the real estate business and this land grabbing scam could even surpass the fake stamp paper scam.

The government officials were equally responsible for the scam to flourish. There were as many as 193 illegal housing cooperatives in the city, he said.

He also produced a copy of a Housing society which paid a bribe of Rs 4.5 crore to various government agencies and politicians for expediting the land acquirement process. Unfortunately for the society work of the land allotment could not progress well despite the payment of the bribe, the societies records revealed, he said.

The committee had found the Revenue department land of 15,000 acres of 42,000 acres of land surveyed so far had been encroached, he said.

The Revenue department owns 1.18 lakh acres of land around the city. The land grabbing was also found in Bannerghatta National Park and Kadugodi Forest land on the outskirts of the city, he added.

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