Land for beggars, who cares?

BANGALORE: There are reasons to believe that the State Government is not keen on recovering the encroached land belonging to the Beggars Colony as more than 12 years have passed since Supreme Court ruled that 1.5 acres of land near Sumanahalli belongs to the Beggars’ Rehabilitation Centre. The government has not yet initiated any measures to take back the land from squatters and also act against a lessee  though the lease period on over 50 acres of land belonging to the Beggars Colony expired more than three years ago. Central Relief Committee Secretary Dr RN  Raja Naik said,”We had written to the  Revenue Department requesting them to  recover the land from the encroachers and in turn, the department had said that it would issue the notices to the encroachers and fix a date for demolishing the illegal structures and take possession of the land. We will have to  follow it up with the Revenue Department.”Around 1.5 acres of land worth more than `25 crore, belonging to the Beggars Colony, was encroached upon by the family members of one late Govindraju in 1980 and the State  Government had filed a civil suit in the  court. In 1996, the High Court had decided  the case in favour of Beggars colony and  Govindraju had filed an appeal in the Supreme  Court. In 1998, the Supreme Court had held  that the land in question belonged to the  Beggars colony and had left it to the State Government to recover the land. However, the State Government has not done anything in this regard so far. According to sources, the land is in the  possession of some influential persons  after the death of Govindraju. The State Government had leased out 55  acres and 25 guntas of land to Sumanahalli  Leprosy Rehabilitation Centre for 30 years  in 1977 and the lease period expired in  2007. According to sources, the  institution which is running this centre is lobbying hard to convince the government to extend the lease. At present, the Beggars Colony has only 38  acres of the 308.03 acres of land allotted  to it by the  Maharaja of Mysore in  1944. The remaining land is either leased  or allotted to Unani Medical College,  Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board,  Outer Ring Road, Bangalore Metropolitan  Transport Corporation, Bruhat Bangalore  Mahanagara Palike and Slum Clearance Board .