BSY to grant 50x80 feet BDA sites to Team India

DHNS

Bangalore, 05 April 2011: Habits die hard. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, who has got into all sorts of trouble in the recent past over granting BDA sites to his relatives, colleagues and followers, on Sunday offered BDA sites measuring 50 ftx80 ft to members of the World Cup winning cricket team.

 

The players would be offered sites in one location, the chief minister told the media, but did not indicate the area. In addition, Yeddyurappa said he would like to felicitate cricketers and the supporting staff for their brilliant performance, at Vidhana Soudha. He said he would get in touch with Dhoni to take his plans forward.

 

Successive governments in Karnataka, aping their counterparts in other States, have made it a habit to offer BDA sites to star cricket players winning a tournament, other achievers and even non-achievers.

 

In most cases, the deserving, such as award winners and achieving athles do not get the sites which normally go to legislators, MPs and politicians’ relatives. None of the Team India members are from Bangalore, or need housing in Bangalore. S Sreesanth lives in Bangalore, but does not represent Karnataka.

 

The alacrity with which the government has announced the rewards to Dhoni’s men may be more of competitive award-offering to be one up with other State governments, considering that the government is yet to honour in a similar manner, the athletes who won honours for the country in the CWG at Delhi and the Asian Games in Beijing, such as Ashwini Akkunji. In any case, the sites may never materialise as has happened in the case of many athletes in the past.

 

Yeddyurappa’s pavlovian announcement apart, the government might be wary of offering sites, as the High Court had passed serious strictures against the government offering ‘G’ category sites to anyone.