SWD encroachments: With only 290 removed in last 8 months, BBMP’s clearance drive slows down

The BBMP, which was swift in clearing encroachments on storm-water drains (SWDs) after the Congress government took charge, seems to have slowed down,

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which was swift in clearing encroachments on storm-water drains (SWDs) after the Congress government took charge, seems to have slowed down in taking action now.

Data from the city’s civic body shows that between August 2023 and May 2024, 2,344 encroachments of SWDs were removed in 10 months. However, this drive suddenly slowed down from June 2024 and in eight months since, the civic body has cleared only 290 encroachments.

After the Congress government took charge in May 2023, Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar took over as Bengaluru Development Minister and made clearing encroachments on SWDs a top priority, to mitigate floods. His plans to build roads in the buffer zones of SWDs also required encroachments to be cleared. Starting from August 2023, when a special encroachment clearance drive was launched, the civic body went hard against encroachers but lost momentum since June 2024, the data shows.

Of the total 4,316 encroachments identified, 2,634 have been cleared and 1,682 structures remain encroaching the drains in the city, data shows. A senior BBMP official attributed the slowing down of the drive to remove encroachments to court cases and procedural issues.

However, data shows that blame on court cases is not entirely true. There are court cases on only 196 structures identified as encroachments and 1,486 other encroachments do not have any court cases against them. The official argued that clearing of these 1,486 encroachments was in the process. “There is a long procedure before we can demolish and clear an encroachment, like an on-ground survey, serving notices, getting a response, responding to objections, etc. The procedure is in various stages right now for these properties and many of these cases may also end up in courts,” he said.