Bengaluru: Property owners along the ITPL–Hoodi Main Road are up in arms after the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) issued a draft notification for land acquisition on June 18, using outdated property records that exclude current legal owners. The move comes as part of a road-widening project that threatens to acquire parts of several private properties.
The BBMP notification relies on Records of Rights, Tenancy and Crops (RTC) that, in many cases, have not been updated for decades. While the ownership of these properties has changed hands multiple times, the listed names remain those of long-deceased or previous owners.
One such affected resident, H.M. Chandrashekhar, who bought and built on his land in 1987, was shocked to find the name “Nagappa” listed as the property owner—based on an RTC last updated in 1968. Similarly, Venkatesh Reddy, who constructed his home on ancestral land in 1999, found the acquisition notice listing his great-grandfather, who passed away over 50 years ago.
Owners argue that the civic body had earlier acknowledged their ownership. In 2017, BBMP had issued acquisition notices under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Act, 2013, promising compensation of ₹18,197 per sq. ft. However, the process was dropped then—and now, the current notification omits present owners entirely, despite them holding A Khatas, paying property taxes, and being listed in BBMP’s records.
Property owners suspect this may be a prelude to another Transferrable Development Rights (TDR) scam. In a formal objection to BBMP, they alleged that the move seems designed to benefit bogus claimants by issuing fake TDRs. The Karnataka Lokayukta and Enforcement Directorate (ED) are currently investigating prior instances of such fraud, with ED conducting raids as recently as May.
Calling for the immediate withdrawal of the draft, the aggrieved owners have demanded a new notification that reflects current ownership and legal documents. Many are also considering filing formal complaints with the Lokayukta.
In response, BBMP Chief Civic Commissioner M. Maheshwar Rao clarified that this is only a draft and that owners have 30 days (from June 18) to submit objections and ownership claims before a final notice is issued.
Experts in real estate attribute the issue to non-updated revenue records across much of the city. A major problem lies in the fact that the city survey converting RTCs to urban records has only been done in Bengaluru’s core areas, leaving outlying zones like Hoodi vulnerable to such disputes.
