BANGALORE: This is going to make a great impact on your pocket. When the proposed Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) cuts through the areas where your property is situated, the property value will surely skyrocket. But be prepared to share a portion of this premium with the BDA.

Call it impact fee or betterment levy, this is the rationale behind BDA's decision. This concept has a legal standing in the BDA Act as well as the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act. The BDA is hastening the process to clear all decks for the construction of the first phase of the PRR for which the final land acquisition notification has been issued. It will collect Impact Fee from those properties that will benefit by the project.

As of now, the BDA is looking at one third of the premium amount. For instance, if the value of the land is Rs 50 lakh per acre which zooms up to Rs 75 lakh soon after the PRR is constructed, then the owner will have to pay one-third of the Rs 25 lakh as impact fee.

The BDA has already completed the final notification for 1,810 acres for the first phase of the PRR — 65 km connecting Tumkur and Hosur roads — which is estimated to cost Rs 3,000 crore. The BDA is in the process of fixing the compensation for the lands, which depends from area to area; Rs 343 crore has been set aside for this.

According to BDA officials dealing with land acquisition process, two models are looked at — Hyderabad and Gujarat — where impact fee was collected from the properties adjacent to the ring roads. There, some properties at a distance of one km perpendicular to the outer ring road were notified for collection of the fee. “We are going to visit these two places to study the models and arrive at the exact distance that should be taken into consideration for levying the fee,'' officials explained. Normally, properties in areas at a distance of 1 km to 2 km from the ring road will be notified for the payment of impact fee.

This apart, the BDA has notified some areas adjacent to the existing outer ring road for the collection of the fee as the realty market has skyrocketed. A fee of Rs 300/sqft has been notified and the BDA has received a lot of objections from residents. Two years ago, the BDA had collected Rs 2 crore from a few properties close to the ring road.