BBMP offers Anekal property to defence dept for land swap

The proposed exchange of land between the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and the defence establishment inched a little forward on Tuesday with military officers inspecting BBMP’s property at Thammanayakanahalli in Anekal taluk in Bengaluru Urban district.

The Palike needed 62 acres of defence land in the city for various development projects like road-widening, flyovers and underpasses. The defence establishment had agreed for the exchange of land on the condition that the value of land the Palike offered was equivalent to the guidance value of the defence property.

The general officer commanding of Karnataka and Kerala Sub Area, Major General K S Nijjar, Colonel Ashok Mishra, BBMP special commissioner B M Vijayashankar, BBMP chief engineer K T Nagaraj and assistant commissioner of revenue department D B Natesh inspected 207 acres and 24 guntas of land in survey number 23 of Thammanayakanahalli.

The army officers expressed their willingness to exchange their land with Palike’s sprawling 207.24 acres of land. They said they would send a report to the Defence Ministry.

According to BBMP sources, the Palike needs defence land to kickstart 22 pending road infrastructure projects. Besides this, another 90 acres of government land adjacent to survey number 23 is available and the Palike reportedly proposed to hand over 35 acres of it. However, there was no clear commitment from the defence officers about accepting it.

It is learnt that 62 acres of defence land in the city is worth Rs 1,500 crore, whereas the guidance value of each acre of Palike land in Anekal is around Rs 30 lakh.

The Palike has already agreed to hand over Kensington Park near Halasuru lake to acquire 9,991 sq metres of land belonging to the Madras Engineer Group (MEG) to complete the railway overbridge (ROB) at Baiyappanahalli.