General Insurance Employees' Layout

I came to Bangalore from Bombay during 1977 on Transfer by my employers, The New India Assurance Co Ltd. During my observations here, I came across the feeling and efforts of some of my then colleagues to form a housing layout for members from the company. After a year or two I happen to note that similar efforts were going on in the other 3 subsidiaries also of the GIC. Then all the 4 groups felt to merge together and make a layout for the General Insurance Industry.

The persons who were active in the  project of forming a layout for the employees of the Insurance Industry proposed to form a House Building Cooperative Society, buy land and form the layout. There were representative from all the 4 subsidiaries of the General Insurance Corporation and the pioneers worked hard for about 10 years. By that time some of the active persons were either about to retire or were on transfers. Hence they decided to call for a meeting and elected a new committee with N R Krishnaiah as the president, my self as the General Secretary and  S V Nagaraj as the treasurer with 2 members each from the subsidiary companies. This committee also tried to form a layout and found it not easy. They met the ministers concerned through some of their relations who were members of the Society. As the circumstances existing at that time the situation was not favorable to form layout by employees associations by themselves. Hence it was decided to form an Association as a collective Representative of employees members interested in plots and find out and negotiated for the members with the established cooperative societies who may have sites to offer to the members. Accordingly the General Insurance Employees' Welfare Association (GIEWA) was formed.

Synopsis of Layout

The General Insurance Employees' Welfare Association (GIEWA) was formed with the idea of having a housing layout for the employees of the General Insurance Industry. Earlier there was a ‘proposed House Building Co-operative Society’ with committee members from National Insurance, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and the United India Insurance to develop a housing colony for the General Insurance Employees. The committee tried sincerely for about 10 years. Due to the political circumstances prevailing at that time, the committee felt it will not be possible to pursue the objective further. Most of the Committee members were either transferred out of city or were due for retirement from service. Hence they called a meeting and elected a new committee. This committee after holding a general body meeting decided to form a layout through an existing house building co-op society and refund the amount collected by the ‘proposed house building co-op scy’ to the respective members.

Processing of Proposals

The new committee got about details of 20 proposals where registered House Building Societies having plots to offer. Out of these only on Housing Society by name the Amarajyothi House Building Co-operative Society (A J) was in a position to meet with our requirements and after discussions with the society an agreement was reached. As per the agreement we are to be given 250 sites as bulk allotment in one place. The agreement was reached in 1989. Till 1995 the society had to fight  with landlords in courts and during 1995 The supreme court gave an order that this society along with 7 others were not having enough genuine members and are indulging in real estate business in the name of housing society activities. Hence the lands acquired by the State Government for these societies were to be given back to the respective landlords. The landlords were to repay the payments received from the societies by installments to the State Government.  The Government in turn is to repay the amounts to the societies in installments after receiving from the landlords. With that background a meeting of GIEWA members was called to ascertain their opinion as to the future course . Most of the members felt that the Association should request the A J to renegotiate with the landlords and buy enough land to form lay out for our members. A J authorities promised and they had shown us some places. But after sometime they intimated that it will not be possible for them to provide a layout for us due to the complications they were expecting and wanted to stop their activities in housing. They agreed to refund the amount paid by our members through us in installments as and when they receive from the Government.  However, by that time the procedures for formation of layouts were comparatively easier and our Association decided to try to form a layout for its members.

GIEWA Layout

In view of the above position the General Insurance Employees’ Welfare Association (GIEWA) in a general body meeting decided to form its own layout with the help of developers. Accordingly the Managing Committee of the Association consisting of S/s N R Krishnaiah of National Insurance, R Mohan of Oriental Insurance, A R Ramanathan of New India Assurance Co as the office bearers; and the following committee members: Sri V Narasimhan from National Insurance Co; Sri P Suresh Babu from New India Assurance Co; Sri S V Nagaraj and Sri K M Sadanandamurthy from Oriental Insurance Co; and Sri L Chandrasekhar and K E Vijaykumar from the United India Insurance Co was elected by the meeting. The Committee got the Association registered. It took a lot of time and some committee members ( Krishnaiah, Narasimhan, Mohan, Chandrasekhar and Vijaykumar) resigned and Sri R Sathyanarayana and M N Viswanath were elected as committee members. GIEWA  Committee saw many proposals of prospective places for the layout shown by prospective developers. Finally the committee zeroed in a place in the Kembathahalli Village near Anjanapura Village about 16 km from City Railway Station and Town Hall. The Committee felt that none of the members being experienced in layout procedures decided to take the help of real estate developers to form the layout. The Committee tried 4 -5 developers (Lakshman a contractor of BDA; One Srinivas nephew of the Konanakunte Village Panchayath President who was to give the land; Basaviaiha & Nagaraj associates of Amarajyothi Society; the Secretary of the Vysya Bank Employees credit society who was also trying to form a layout fr Vysya Bank employees and Pegasus Promoters private developers). and finally felt that the Pegasus Promoters and Developers will be able to help us and an agreement was entered in 1999 with them to let us have around 85 sites in the first phase and another 150 sites in the next phase. But the members were not indicating clearly as to who were all interested to own sites. In the absence of this indication it was felt that 'silence is confirmation' and considered as all were interested for plots and we proceeded towards forming our layout.  

BDA acquisition notice of our sites and land.

After registering about 80 sites, we had a setback. The BDA issued notice to acquire all the lands around our layout including our sites. We had to represent and pursue with the BDA through our Developers, M/s Pegasus Promoters & Developers (they were also GPA holders of the landlords involved) to get the sites released from BDA. It took around 2 years. This caused some fear in the minds of the members waiting for sites and the response for further sites was lukewarm. Because of this further delay was there and the developer was not in a position to wait for us and sold the proposed 2^nd phase area to another private developers by name Classic Developers, Koramangala. During this process some of the Committee members withdrew themselves and no new ones were willing to come forward. Many members who had expressed their desire to have the sites also left the association taking back the deposit amounts paid by them for sites. 

We had based our calculation in such way that the rate for the first phase will be on an even basis without making any profit as our Association is founded on the principle of 'No loss No profit'. We presumed that after registration of some sites to members there will be confidence in the minds of the prospective site owners and new members will join for sites. We felt that we can charge a higher rate for the plots from these new members and the extra amount will take care of the completion of the layout works, build an overhead water tank, a mini wind mill for standby electric power during power cuts, planting of selected species of trees on Road sides, proper public light system and to meet the regular maintenance expenses of the layout. But the response as stated earlier was lukewarm and we had to abandon the further registrations. Those few members who were waiting for sites were given back their deposit amounts. On account of this we could not generate extra funds for the completion of the layout works and provide for the maintenance expenses of the layout. In view of this a call was given on the basis of the general body decision of the Association for extra contributions from the registered site owners of the layout to fulfill the above mentioned requirements. 

Due to some misunderstanding about the integrity of the Office Bearers and delay the response for the call of additional payments from members was not encouraging. Only about half of the registered site owners paid one installment of the proposed two installments. This response was discussed in a subsequent General Body meeting of the Association and it was decided that after trying one more attempt to collect the amounts from balance members refund the additional amounts collected if the response is not encouraging.Since the response was poor the amounts collected were refunded to the concerned members. By March 2002, Mr Sadanandamurthy, the then President who was active with the Secretary was transferred to Mysore. He was at Bangalore only on weekends and holidays. Since he had 2 establishments one at Mysore and the original at Bangalore he could not give much attention. Another active member Mr S V Nagaraj was having serious health problems and could not give much assistance. One of the Commi9ttee members Mr Suresh Babu was made as Branch in charge by his employers  and had very less time to spare for this activity. Due to all the factors mentioned above the layout work could not be concluded to the extent of 100 %. Some final touch ups were to be done.

During 2006 a new committee was formed.  This new committee after some starting troubles took up some repair works. By the time the work was being done some persons tried to encroach the sites in the layout. The encroaches in one place put up a compound wall and in another place fixed fence posts. The office bearers of the then committee expressed their inability to attend to this matter as their office work did not permit them to move out during office hours and an Ad hoc committee was formed with Mr S V Nagaraj as the Secretary and other members as Committee members.  This ad hoc committee with the help of some previous office bearers took up the matter of encroachments with the Police authorities concerned and partially succeeded in removing the encroachment and demolish the compound wall. However the party went to court against us and the case is pending. But regarding the encroachment by those fixing fence posts the police suggested to go for joint survey by the Survey department of the Government. The Police officials themselves wrote to the Survey department for survey. Even after persuasion till now the survey department did not do the survey (till 31.5.2012). The effort is continuing by some members under the present committee of the layout management.

In the meantime Mr S V Nagaraj could not spare time for further actions and he called for a General Body Meeting in 2009 or 2010 and a new committee and officer bearers were elected. The Office Bearers are: President - Sri S Ramesh, Secretary - Sri S Prabhakar, Treassurer - Sri P Nitiish and Committee Members - S/s M L Venugopal, T Tammi Reddy, R Ganeshan, L Domanic Mariya, C S Balasubramanian, A S Natesh and K M Ramachandra. Subsequently I presume the committee co opted Smt K S Manjula as additional member. Smt K S Manjula with the assistance of Sri R Ganeshan agreed to follow up the legal matters with the advocates. It is heartening to note that the new committee has collected additional funds from the members and have called quotations for construction of compound wall and the work is nearing completion.

My idea for a model housing plot colony for insurance employees

As explained, my idea was to have a housing layout of about 250 to 500 sites. Those who are already members (about 85) will be given concession in rates (almost one third of teh then prevailing rates in the area) and new members will be charged more so that on the whole it will be even. Later when the demand increases for sites from new members the rates were to be increased in proportion with the market rate increase. Accordingly the formation of the layout was proposed in 2 to 3 phases. The increase in the price will generate some extra money which could be utilized for providing amenities to the colony. The amenities proposed was for leveling of the entire layout and raising the level to higher than the road level, providing 2 overhead tanks for supply of water to the entire colony, arranging for one or two bore wells for water supply, a windmill for producing electricity for the colony and also for lifting the water from the bore wells to the overhead tank with the wind power, establishing a school in the colony, having a compound wall all around the colony, an emergency nursing room facility, persuading nurses, doctors, railway employees and KSRTC employees, persons form police department or having connection with police department and some advocates etc so that the colony will become a self contained one with all facilities to members. These were informed to some members, but many could not be informed. Since response was not there for more sites as expected because of various factors, I proposed a higher amount to be collected additionally so that these ideas could be implemented and make the colony a model one. Unfortunately for various reasons it could not materialize and I am very much disappointed. 

My lack of skills a stumbling block

I had the ideas but could not effectively communicate to the members and others who might have been interested in joining the colony. I used to discuss the matter to some of the close associates but in retrospect I feel that I could not enthuse them towards the ideas. I could not also inspire other committee members and other associates about the project and there was not much pushing from the side of the committee members and others. With the result the the ideal colony remained as an unfulfilled dream only. As mentioned in an earlier paragraph, most of the committee members, due to other pre-occupations could not spare much time after March 2002 when the  BDA problem came. Then there was a problem of a storm water drain canal of huge size made by the BDA on the Northern border of our layout. They took some land from our layout and the neighboring property to make the canal. Consequently some of whose sites were at the Northern end had lost some portion of their site. Some others had gained. One person had lost most portion of his site. Since many members were not coming forward because of the developments mentioned, the remaining land reserved for the 2nd phase of the layout was sold by the Developer to another developer. Unfortunately 5 members had already registered sites in then proposed 2nd phase portion and the sites were gone to the purchaser of this portion, M/s Classic Developers. Myself and Mr Sadanandamurthy had been pursuing this matter with our developer who used to promise to sort out the matter. But nothing happened. In the meantime I had the health problem of prostate enlargement and was under treatment  which ultimately was surgically removed in April, 2007. My age,  health and distance between my house and the layout and the developer's house being about 25 km did not allow me to have frequent visits to him. Besides he being a real estate business man and has his own properties to develop was not available when we go to his house. He never used to attend the phone calls from us. As mentioned elsewhere I had to give up the active participation due to my age, health in addition to the misunderstanding about my integrity  by some of the members. Under that circumstances if I continued it would have created further complications. Hence in 2006 a new committee was formed with many of those who had doubt about me.

The Present problems

There are mainly 3 problems affecting some of the members. One of the problem is the inertia of members. Another problem is court cases. The third problem is the mischief of the greedy land grabbers.

The sites were registered to the concerned members during 2001 and 2002. From that time till about beginning of 2012 no member took any initiative to attend to their sites either individually or collectively.  This inaction, indifference t the properties of members with the steep rise in land value attracted the land grabbers. Bangalore like any other center is having large number of mischievous advocates  who find out the then minors, now majors with inducement of getting the property or share from the one sold by their guardians during 2001/2002. Some of the land grabbers too abet them in this nefarious activities.  This has resulted in some descendents of the erstwhile landlords to stake claims on the sites owned by our members. While few have gone to courts against the site owners of the layout, in some cases the site owners have to go for legal proceedings due to the encroachment activities of the miscreants. The committee has been persuading the members from 2004 either surrender the sites to the Association so that the same can be given to those who came to the committee for sites in the layout, take back the amount and give the sites - if they are not happy with the sites or make contributions to create a maintenance fund for building a compound wall  for all sites so that each site is protected and the entire layout is also walled in. The fund was to cover addition the provision for a deposit so that the interest from the same can take care of the running common expenses of the layout, make a bore-well and overhead tank, planting trees n the roads have security arrangement and other collective activities taking co-operation of the village neighbors around the layout. Unfortunately response for the same was very poor and had to drop the idea. Then 3 sets of committees were successively to take care of the common interest. However as the members had no interest in the common interests of the layout nothing much could be done.