Bengaluru: In another twist to the search for land to house the office of Janata Dal (Secular) in the city, BBMP is all set to give the political party land meant for a hospital in Krishna Flour Mill in Subhash Nagar (Majestic).
The civic body’s latest move comes after the High Court ordered a stay on its earlier decision to gift 1.1 acres land (worth Rs 50 crore) near Sankey Tank bund area. The leading online portal had reported about the controversy around the Sankey Tank allotment on Jan 2 (Bizman says Sankey plot gifted by BBMP for JD(S) office is his).
A final call to give the Subhash Nagar site will be taken in the BBMP’s monthly council meeting on February 27.
The JD(S) has been without an office ever since it moved out of its Race Course Road building last December to make way for the Congress party.
The party supremo former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda reportedly wrote to BBMP commissioner M Lakshminarayana and mayor N Shanthakumari seeking allotment of vacant land near Krishna Flour Mill (in ward 65), Subhash Nagar.
The commissioner asked officials to survey the land and submit a report. However, the report mentioned the land had already been allotted to build a hospital and the BBMP had allotted Rs 9 crore for the project and even released Rs 4.5 crore in 2011.
On Friday, the commissioner cancelled the order to allot Sankey Tank land for JD(S) and recommended that the Subhash Nagar site be given to it on lease for five years.
The hospital project is the brainchild on Subhash Nagar ward corporator T Mallesh, a Congress man. He had pitched for the project on October 26, 2010, and the same was okayed by the then BBMP commissioner on April 11, 2011. When Bangalore Mirror spoke to Mallesh about Friday’s developments, he vowed to fight for the hospital project. He said, “Nearly 75 per cent people staying around Jakkarayanakere (where the hospital land exists) are poor and cannot afford high-tech health care.”
Civil supplies minister and local Gandhinagar MLA Dinesh Gundu Rao, in whose constituency the Subhash Nagar site is, said, “Just like any political party they (JD(S)) are entitled to get land. The hospital project will be allotted some other land to make space for the party.”
Couresty: BM
