Sir,

The recent Mysuru Development Authority (MDA) site e-auctions in city have turned into nothing short of daylight robbery in the name of urban development. Take, for instance, the shocking case of a 600 sq. ft. site in Vijayanagar 4th Stage, auctioned for Rs. 2 crore.

As someone who personally participated in these auctions, I witnessed first-hand how prices skyrocketed beyond the reach of any genuine home-buyer.

A Government-backed institution like MDA is meant to serve the common citizens of Mysuru — people who have nurtured a lifelong dream of building their own home in their beloved city.

Instead, the process today appears rigged to favour real estate sharks and goons.

These so-called investors bid blindly at inflated prices, not to secure homes, but to push genuine bidders out of the process and grab prime sites for speculation.

The result? The very citizens MDA is meant to serve — the middle-class Mysureans — are being systematically excluded. With rampant real estate speculation, outsiders and profiteers now dominate the city’s land market, while native residents are increasingly being pushed out.

What should have been an empowering process to help families secure a roof over their heads has turned into a game of profit and greed. But there is a simple solution that MDA can implement. Today, MDA already enforces a 10-year lock-in period for allottees before they are allowed to sell their allotted sites.

The same principle must apply to auctioned sites as well. By mandating at least a 5-year lock-in period for auction winners, MDA can immediately discourage speculative bidding and ensure that only genuine home-buyers participate in the process.

Mysuru’s growth and development cannot come at the cost of robbing its own citizens of their right to affordable housing. If MDA truly wishes to uphold its mandate, it must stop serving real estate mafias and start protecting the people of this city.

Otherwise, the dream of owning a home in Mysuru will remain just that — a dream — for its own residents.

— Gururaj Ramachandra

Mysuru

8.9.2025