Hassan district unit of the Aam Admi Party staged a protest in front of the office of Hassan Urban Development Authority opposing the collection of money from applicants seeking sites in proposed layouts. The protesters alleged that the authority had called for applications for the second time only to make money.
The protesters, led by the party’s district president K.P. Shivakumar, said that the authority had issued a notification for 6,784 sites in 2020 itself. As many as 57,000 people had applied for the sites then. Once again, the authority had invited applications this year for the same number of sites.
So far 80,000 people have submitted applications. June 10 is the last day to submit applications. The number of applications could go up to 1 lakh. Every applicant has to deposit 10% of the value of the site along with the application. “If applicants deposit an average of ₹ 1.5 lakh each as advance deposit, the authority would be collecting hundreds of crores of rupees. However, there is no set timeline, when the applicants would get the sites,” Shivakumar said.
AAP demanded that the authority stop collecting advance deposit from applicants.
AAP office-bearers K.S. Srinivas, Babu, Ramesh and others were present.