Munish Moudgil, Special Commissioner (Revenue), BBMP
Bengaluru: More than 300 local private entrepreneurs (LPEs) have expressed interest in providing e-khata services in Bengaluru for a fee of Rs 45 per application.
This will become the third official channel for property owners unable to process e-khata applications on their own.
Until now, Bangalore One centres and the government-backed Jana Sevaka platform were authorised to upload property documents. Both charge Rs 45 per application, and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has decided to retain the same fee for LPEs.
Once onboarded, LPEs will be allowed to upload property-related documents — including sale deeds, Aadhaar-based e-KYC, property tax numbers, and photographs — required to generate the final e-khata. The authority to issue the e-khata will continue to rest with BBMP revenue officials, as mandated by the law.
Munish Moudgil, Special Commissioner (Revenue), BBMP, said that the civic body would train the selected entrepreneurs before they begin operations. "We have received 300 responses so far. After the orientation, we will publish the names and locations of the LPEs on our website so that people can access their services,” he said.
He noted that anyone with basic computer skills could set up such service centres and expressed hope that 3,000 more entrepreneurs would join in the future.
On average, uploading the required documents for an e-khata acknowledgement takes about 30 minutes. In addition to the Rs 45 service fee, the BBMP charges Rs 125 to issue the final e-khata.
The move to decentralise the service is expected to speed up the BBMP’s property record digitisation drive, with over 15 lakh properties in Bengaluru still relying on manually written khatas vulnerable to tampering.
The civic body also anticipates a surge in e-khata requests as it prepares to launch door-to-door delivery of draft copies.
While uploading documents has posed challenges, generating the final e-khata has been harder as it requires clearance from assistant revenue officers (AROs).
To address this, Moudgil said that the civic body had introduced a system to improve disposal rates. "We have adopted a first-come, first-served policy so revenue officers do not sit on applications. We have also built a system that automatically forwards long-pending files to the next ARO without a backlog,” he added.