BMRDA seeks to apply land pooling for Bidadi Smart City

The much-awaited Bidadi Smart City project, for which the Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA) has begun preparing the master plan, will mark a new beginning for Karnataka.

Envisaged on the lines of the proposed Amaravati project in Andhra Pradesh, the country’s largest experiment in land pooling, the BMRDA is also exploring a similar route under the provisions of Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961(KTCP Act) for Bidadi city.

Under the KTCP Act’s town planning (TP) scheme, the planning authority will allow farmers and other land owners to voluntarily give up ownership rights of their land to the government for the project. Once the project is over, original land owners will get a share of the developed land. Under this scheme, there is no land acquisition or compensation as such.

The move will then push up the market value of the land, benefiting the original land owners.

The official, however, said that the share of developed land and related agreements with farmers will only be arrived at after the master plan is ready, which henceforth, will be prepared in a year or so.

The BMRDA in its notification dated November 15, 2016 had called for expression of interest for developing the master plan for the project, for which the planning area is spread across 38 villages in and around Bidadi in Ramanagara district.

Source : Mbnow