Sakrama and its relevance

What is Sakrama? - It is supposed to be a one time regularisation program to allow people who have purchased and built properties in Bangalore and other towns in Karnataka on unauthorized sites/layouts (mostly poor and middle class people) as well as the ones who have building violations on either approved or unapproved sites.  According to the rules in Bangalore, no authority other than BDA, BMRDA, BMICPA, BIAPPA have the authority to sanction residential layouts in the city ( I am going to call it the Big B's).  But it is seen that there a lot of sites/ layouts without the approval of the authorites mentioned above exists.  Erstwhile CMC's and Panchayats did not have permission to approve layouts.  However, it is seen than quite a good number of propertites in Bangalore are unauthorised as they did not have approval from Big B's.  It was much easy for a layout develper to get permission from  a CMC or Panchayat.  Also residential layouts approved by Panchayats did not have to set beside 50% of the space to open areas, parks, roads etc as against the rules by Big B's.  Also many of the layouts have not done a DC conversion (process of converting the land from agricultrual to non agricultural which is the first step for a a layout approval).

Well, isnt it boring to hear just about unauthorized sites and layouts.  Ok!! got you.. so lemme introduce to you to - "Building Violations".  I am sure every bangalorean would have heard of Building violation.  It is been said that majority of the buildings in bangalore have violations from the actual plans.  These includes residential (apartments, individual homes, row houses) as well as commercial buildings like hospitals, hotels malls etc). Again these structures that have violated may be on authorised or unauthorised sites.

Sakrama was introduced by Kumaraswamy govt (JDS) in 2007, However do to various reasons it has not been implemented as of now.  The current BJP govt is trying its level best to implent it, but is not able to fully succeed due to various reasons. This will be mentioned in abother blog.

So as of now that is in August 2010 it is said that there are 8 lakh properties eligible for amnesty under Sakrama (either under unauthorised sites or building violations).  This is substatantial number - aint it?  And also this is growing more rapidly in number than our  economy itself... What was 3 lakh in 2004 has become more than 8 lakh in 2010.   And if the Sakram program doesnt get implemented, it will reach 12 lakhs in 2012.


It has been almost 3 years since the Sakrama initially came out.  Till now there has been no implementation.  Fights among political parties, governors intervention, citizens groups involvements and a whole lot of issues have prevented this from formally becoming a law.

The need for Sakrama - Not everyone in Bangalore was lucky enough to get a BDA site.  We all know that when BDA develops a layout, more than half of them are reserved for special category, politicians, ex service men, socially backward, etc.. It has been seen that only the very lucky and influential people do get it.  That puts the remaining middle and lower middle class at the mercy of developers of such unauthorised properties.  It is high time that the governments (including all the major political parties in Karnataka) passes this resolution.  This will benifit the normal people in regularising their property.  Only with a regularised property can one obtain bank loans for construction.  At this point of time even reseeling a site for personal emergency like daughters wedding or something like that is impossible.  The politicians seem to be not bothered and fighting against each other without speeding up this process.  Also Sakrama has another benifit of reducing the market prices and making the properties accessible to a lot of people.  For eg:, a bda site in a place like bannerghatta road costs approx 1 crore + for a 60 * 40. But the regularised sites would be at a much lower price making it accessible to common man. 

Like Karl Marx one said "Workers of the World Unite", I would like to say that "Common People of  Karnataka Unite" and force the government to push this law.