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Bengaluru’s civic body BBMP is in a legal tussle with builders in the city over unpaid dues amassing to over 1,00 crores for land rent, licence fees, building licence fee, scrutiny fee and other such construction approvals. Collection was temporarily halted in August 2021 by a High Court directive. In January 2022, the Karnataka Municipal Corporation and Certain Other Law (Amendment) Act-2021 was revised to restart the collection process, but the amended law it yet to be implemented.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is struggling to recover pending dues amassing to over 1,000 crore rupees from builders. To grant construction approvals, the BBMP collects land rent, licence fees, building licence fees, scrutiny fees, and other fees from builders. When the BBMP released a circular indicating a hike in the above-mentioned fees, builders in the city approached the High Court to protest. As a result, in August 2021 the civic body was instructed to collect only half the sum and declared the circular ultra vires.
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To combat the High Court’s decision, the Karnataka Municipal Corporation and Certain Other Law (Amendment) Act-2021 was revised in January 2022 as BBMP faced the possibility of having to return the Rs 2,362 crore it had amassed. By doing so, the BBMP was able to reclaim Rs 1,200 crore in unpaid fees in addition to keeping the money that it had already collected. However, their woes are far from over.
According to RTI activists the civil body has only been able to collect a meagre portion of the actual dues from the 100 builders that took them to court. The modified law is yet to be implemented, and so the pending dues remain uncollected. Some activists believe that the builder-nexus might be intentionally causing delays to avoid paying over 1,200 crore rupees that are collectively due to the civic body, however there is no substantial proof of the same.
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