Mantri Mall paves the way for mall checklist

BANGALORE: The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has become a role model for ‘patience’, as they wait until all building bylaws are violated, and only then decide to act ‘tough’ against the perpetrator.The Mantri Mall fiasco, where the BBMP remained mum during the construction and gave necessary clearances, has now decided to ‘take action’ against the builder and also check the other malls in the city. The incident, reinstating the City corporation’s reputation as one of the best ‘firefighting’ squads in the city, who wait till the very end to act upon issues, especially concerning Malls.Added to this, Mantri Builders ‘stepped on a few toes’ when they decided to allege that they were being ‘harassed’ by a few corporators of the city. The incident has led the city council to ‘dig for more dirt’ against the builders, who, allegedly, have not just violated bylaws, but have also encroached upon government land as well. Terming the actions of Mantri developers as ‘Day light robbery’, Malleshwaram Legislator Ashwath Narayan said that according to the 1995 Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP), a road was to pass across the current mall area.“According to the records, Mantri is supposed to have a total area of 14 acres and 5 Guntas, but their latest claim is that they have over 19 acres. “Officials seems to be hand-in-glove in all these activities,” he alleged and added that the developers had registered the Mall in Rajajinagar Sub-registrar office as against Gandhinagar, the actual jurisdiction of the Mall.But the ‘crusade’ did not end with Mantri, as corporators took other builders to task as well. They alleged that Brigade Gateway was constructing a structure three times the size of Mantri on Dr Rajkumar Road. “Reduce the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in the Central Business District (CBD) to reduce traffic congestion”, they opined. Adding to this, he also alleged that many of the building bylaws have being violated by the builder. “Many provision of the Occupation Certificate (OC) has not been followed and poor people’s homes are being encroached upon in the name of development,” he alleged. But the problems were not just with one mall, as most of them were located on high density traffic roads.Narayan also shared that the Passenger Car Unit (PCU) was an incredible 6,200 on Sampige Road, and road widening was not the ‘panacea’ for de-congestion of roads and called for a comprehensive Traffic Management Study. “There should be no more approvals given to new malls in the core area,” he said. Added to this, the Janata Dal (Secular) Floor leader Padmanabha Reddy shared that he had warned against traffic problems even before the UB Mall had opened. Standing Committee Chairman on Town Planning, CK Ramamurthy shared that many builders, whose properties were demolished in B and C Zones were using their TDR’s for construction purposes in the A Zone as well.