BENGALURU: Netas in Karnataka have mooted an exclusive housing plan for themselves. It will be christened The Legislature Township and is likely to come up on a 100-acre plot near Whitefield in Bengaluru. The township, a first-of-its-kind in the country, will not only give independent houses to MLAs and MLCs but also provide accommodations to officers attached to both houses of the legislature. The township will also house sprawling bungalows for the assembly speaker and the council chairman, and will be equipped with modern amenities such as a club house, community hall, recreation centre and playground. Speaking to TOI, legislative assembly speaker K B Koliwad said: “The idea was to have a residential layout for legislators on the lines of the accommodations provided to Karnataka High Court judges at Nyaya Grama near Hebbal. This concept was mooted some time ago and is still in the planning stage. As the Bengaluru district administration has recovered hundreds of acres of encroached government land, we had suggested the officials to identify places spanning over 50 acres to develop the township.” At present, the 225 MLAs and 75 MLCs are allotted rooms in the Legislators’ Home (LH), located next to the Vidhana Soudha. Ministers have been allotted bungalows in different parts of the city. “But the rooms at LH are too small and don’t have features usually offered by private realtors. We want spacious houses with better facilities. This is only possible by developing a new residential complex. Legislators can stay in these houses till they are in office and vacate when their term ends,” said a legislator on condition of anonymity. Koliwad added: “The officials surveyed two-three tracts of land. We are in the process of zeroing in on one of them.” However, sources in the legislature maintained the 711-acre Kadugodi plantation near Whitefield is the most favoured site. “We can use 100 acres from the plantation, which was recently categorized as revenue land. Private properties have come up on 19 acres of land and the status of 34 acres is yet to be decided by the court. However, the land (nearly 100 acres) held by the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) can house the proposed township,” sources said. But not everyone is enthused about the project. “Though the concept is good, the logistics make it impractical. The distance between Vidhana Soudha and Whitefield is nearly 20km. Will our netas be ready to spend more than an hour in traffic? Why should a housing project be taken up when the LH itself is underutilised? The project would cost hundreds of crores of rupees,” said a few bureaucrats. Source: ET Reality Residential
100-acre township in Bengaluru for legislators in the offing
