MUDA to meet farmers on June 4 to end the long-pending deadlock

Mysuru:  The Election Model Code of Conduct has come in the way of the process of formation of Ballahalli Layout, one of the ambitious and a long pending project of Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA).

Sources in MUDA told Star of Mysore that the Authority has now planned to convene a meeting of farmers on June 4 to finalise land acquisition under 50:50 ratio where 50 percent of the developed sites will be given free of cost to land owners whose lands have been acquired for the project. The remaining 50 percent will be owned by MUDA.   

MUDA was constituted with the main purpose of development of new layouts to ease the housing needs of people and provide better infrastructure facilities. Mysuru is witnessing tremendous development after capital city Bengaluru.

It is attracting people from all corners of the world as the place is gifted with clean environment, historic monuments and buildings, concentration of industries, educational and employment opportunities, road and rail connectivity. This apart, good healthcare facility is available in Mysuru and the place is known as the Yoga Capital.

Seeing the growth potential, MUDA has prepared a revised Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) 2031 for the systematic growth of the city, boosting tourism potential also focussing on developing the city without damaging its heritage character.

But MUDA has seen limited success in distributing civic amenity sites, residential sites, commercial sites and other non- residential sites and there are more than one lakh applicants who are waiting for a MUDA plot since many years.

Some of the reasons for MUDA failing to develop new layouts are constraints in land disputes with farmers, delay in land acquisition, government approval process and competition from  private land developers, house building credit cooperative societies and scarcity of land in city surroundings.

Lack of co-operation from farmers for development of new layouts is one of its main stumbling blocks in many cases including Ballahalli Layout formation. The Ballahalli Layout is near Koorgalli and MUDA has planned to acquire 484 acres and 28 guntas of land. It is a Rs. 258 crore project and the State Government approved it on 30.1.2015 and the 50:50 ratio was decided on 11.2.2015.

Earlier, MUDA was following 40:60 ratio where its share was 60 percent and the land owner share was 40 percent. 50:50 ratio has been worked out by MUDA to avoid litigations and claims of more compensation. If the ratio is higher than 50 percent, it will not be profitable to MUDA, said officials.  Of the 484 acres, MUDA has earmarked 7,67,883 sq.ft. land for development of residential sites, 22,798 sq.ft. land for commercial sites, 1,74,524 sq.ft. for civic amenity sites, 2,61,860 sq.ft. for development of parks and 5,18,146 sq.ft. of land for development of roads.

In the layout, MUDA aims to create 6,000 sites and as per the 50:50 ratio, 3,000 developed sites will go to farmers after leaving out space and earmarking roads, drainage, underground drainage, power lines, parks, open space, civic amenity sites and corner sites.

Already, MUDA authorities have held four meetings with land owners and 295 of them have orally agreed to part with the land. These oral consents must be documented in the form of memorandum of understanding (MoU) between MUDA and land owners for the notified land. Once the MoU process is completed, MUDA will begin forming layouts.

One of the stumbling blocks for MUDA at Ballahalli is that the land owners are asking more share in the layout. Mysuru District Minister G.T. Devegowda (GTD) also conducted a meeting to resolve the issue between land owners and MUDA last February but the deadlock remains                        unresolved.

Recently, some Ballahalli farmers also staged a protest outside MUDA office opposing the Layout proposal and the farmers’ share. As Election Model Code was in force, MUDA was not able to find a solution to the imbroglio. Now, MUDA has decided to resolve the issue by holding parleys with farmers on June 4.

MUDA has appealed to farmers and owners of lands coming under all survey numbers, for which the MUDA has issued primary notification for acquisition, to attend June 4 meeting.  

MUDA to form five new layouts

MUDA will form five new residential layouts in view of rapid urbanisation and population growth. The five layouts are Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar Layout, Swarna Jayanti Nagar Layout, Shanthaveri Gopalagowda Layout, Lalithadrinagar Second Stage and Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar Second Stage.  In all, MUDA is targeting to distribute 5,000 sites after developing more than 780 acres of land.

Officials told Star of Mysore that they have already prepared a Detailed Project Report (DPR) to develop these layouts under 50:50 ratio and have submitted a proposal to the Government. They are hoping to get approval after the Lok Sabha elections.