Documents of gramatana, revenue properties in State to be digitised

The State government is planning to launch a statewide drive to digitise documents pertaining to 1.20 crore gramatana and revenue properties, using the e-swathu software of the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) department.

Under the digitisation process, the RDPR department will not only create a computerised property database, but also categorise them as legally or illegally formed properties.

All legal properties will be given Form 9 (‘A’ khata for properties in panchayat limits), while illegal properties will get Form 11b (also called ‘B’ khata). “The digitisation process has been already taken up in the three districts of Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural and Ramanagar. The plan is to soon take it up across the State,” RDPR Additional Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar said.

Though the department introduced the process on June 14, 2013, it is yet to take up digitisation of documents on a drive mode.

Currently, the property documents are being digitised only on demand: If an individual wants to do a transaction on a gramatana or revenue property, she / he has to have a digitised ‘A’ khata (Form 9 generated using the e-swathu software) from the respective village panchayat. And ‘A’ khata is issued to sites formed on revenue land only if they have land conversion order and layout plan approval.

The Stamps and Registration department has made it mandatory that only ‘A’ khata gramatana or revenue properties should be registered. About 2.33 lakh gramatana and revenue sites have been digitised and transaction has been done over them ever since the launch of the digitisation process.

About 51,210 properties have been categorised as ‘B’ khata ones and Form 11b has been issued to them. The State has an estimated 1.20 crore gramatana and revenue sites, official sources said.

A large number of properties located in the gram panchayat limits in the State, especially on the outskirts of major cities and towns, have been formed without obtaining necessary approval from the competent authorities. These properties are currently not categorised as legal or illegal. They are only recorded on property registers of panchayats for the sake of collecting property taxes, officials explained.

Relaxation for ‘A’ khata
The DPAR department has relaxed certain rules to issue an ‘A’ khata for gramatana sites (located within a village limit. This is because gramatana sites will not have the land conversion order and layout plan approval). On proving that a sale transaction has been done on a property before June 14, 2013, or on proving that an individual has bought a gramatana property before the same date. In case of a building, one has to submit a monthly electricity bill dated before June 14, 2013.

Official sources said the statewide drive planned by the department will help owners of gramatana sites to obtain ‘A’ khata by submitting the necessary documents. Once the process is completed, there will be a clear demarcation of legal and illegal properties in rural areas in the State, the sources said.