Members of the public can apply for the sites online and offline from Jan 25. Announcing this on Wednesday, deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar said following a review meeting with BDA officials that after giving priority to landowners who had lost their land for the project, the government agency will be left with about 10,000 sites for sale.The sites will be sold at Rs 4,900 per square foot. While details like plot sizes on sale are not available immediately, a BDA source said a majority of them will be of 30 ft by 40 ft dimension.
According to BDA officials, they have developed Dr Shivaram Karanth Layout by carving plots out of 3,069 acres. While 9,500 sites will be given to the farmers who gave up their land, 4,750 corner sites will be auctioned. The remaining 10,000 sites will be open to the public, he said and added that nine banks have been identified for issuing loans to applicants. Nearly 18,000 people from 17 villages had given up their land for the layout, which is coming in the northern outskirts of the city.
On the perception that the land price in the layout is high, Shivakumar said: “The price may be on the higher side as farmers need to be compensated for the land they have given up for the layout. The government is not making any profit out of this. Unlike private layouts where open space is limited to 45%, Dr Shivaram Karanth Layout has an open space of 58% including roads, parks, civic amenity sites and a stadium. In fact, around 25-30 acres have been identified for a stadium, which will be built on the lines of Kanteerava Stadium in the central part of the city.”
Feb 24 is the last date for applying for the sites in Karanth Layout. The BDA is opening kiosks at all its offices across the city to accept applications. Currently, road works are underway at the layout.
BDA officials said aspirants from the general category should pay 12.5% of the plot prices along with their applications and those from the SC/ST category 5% of the plot prices.
Shivakumar said the allotment of plots will be transparent as per a Supreme Court order.
Proposing to develop Karanth Layout, BDA had issued a preliminary notification on December 30, 2008, for land acquisition. After much litigation, the SC finally ordered on August 3, 2018, that the BDA could go ahead with the layout work. However, the BDA did not do anything until the court stepped in again in December 2020 and appointed a committee to oversee the layout work and facilitate the distribution of plots.
It may be recalled that BDA had last invited applications for allotment of sites in Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout, west of Bengaluru, in 2016. About 5,000 sites were allotted the same year and two years later, another 5,000 sites were allotted. However, the allottees have alleged that most basic amenities are missing.
Earlier, BDA had invited applications for sites for its ambitious Arkavathy Layout in 2005-06. While 8,813 sites were initially planned to be developed in the layout spread across 17 villages, a series of redo notifications and litigation brought down the number to 3,720.