Let CM give BDA land to cricketers, I hope I will get mine too

Bangalore Mirror

Bangalore, 06 April 2011: Chief Minister Yeddyurappa rushed to announce state-sponsored largesse for the World Cup winners, but has had no time for the likes of Arjuna awardee Ramesh Tukaram, who was promised a BDA site in 2002 and is yet to get it.

 

Livid as he is, Ramesh Tukaram cannot help but point out the irony. He won the Arjuna award in 2002, the same year Virender Sehwag got it too. That very year, Tukaram was promised a Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) site by the state government. Nine years have gone by and he’s yet to get the site.

 

Ramesh Tukaram was a champion athlete who won the Arjuna award in 2002 for the differently-abled category from then president APJ Abdul Kalam

 

So, when he heard that chief minister B S Yeddyurappa has promised BDA sites for every member of the World Cup winning Indian team, including of course Veeru, for a moment he thought there would be hope for him as well.

 

“I am happy that the chief minister has made an announcement to award BDA sites to the Indian cricket team. But before doing this, shouldn’t he be issuing sites promised for sports champions from Karnataka,” Tukaram, a champion athlete and badminton player in the differently-abled category asked Bangalore Mirror.

 

Yeddyurappa’s alacrity in doling out state largesse to the Indian team is shameful considering that even acknowledging the achievements of various champions from Karnataka at the recent Asian Games and Commonwealth Games was an afterthought to him. This is what Yeddyurappa said in his newly-discovered euphoria for the Men in Blue: “BDA will form an entire layout which will be made available for the World Cup winning team. The process of identifying the layout will be completed in 15 days time. All the 15 members of the squad and Guru Gary will receive BDA plots.”

 

 

This, when Tukaram has for almost a decade been running from ministers’ homes to secretariat to BDA offices to get the plot he was promised. “I am an Arjuna award winner and a CM doesn’t have time to see me for even two minutes. This has been my experience all these years. So I haven’t even tried to meet Yeddyurappa,” Tukaram said. A year ago, BWSSB minister S Suresh Kumar gave him a letter of recommendation for then BDA commissioner H Siddaiah, but nothing has come of it so far.

 

What makes it worse is that there is clear favouritism at work. Sources revealed that sportsmen like Mallaiah Mahadeva, Venkataravanappa and Kallegowda were given BDA sites even before they were given the Arjuna award.

 

‘BDA HAS NO SITES’

Meanwhile, speaking to Bangalore Mirror, a top official from the chief minister’s office said: “BDA doesn’t have any site to allot to the cricketers in any of the new layouts. We will have to allot stray sites to them. All of them can’t get plots in one layout.” Turns out, the CM makes promises without even checking if they can be carried out.