Karnataka planning a rural Akrama-Sakrama

Karnataka is considering a new scheme to regularise lakhs of unauthorised properties in suburbs and rural areas for a fee, even as the Supreme Court has stayed a similar Akrama-Sakrama plan in urban areas, especially Bengaluru.

The proposal was discussed by a Cabinet sub-committee headed by RDPR Minister K S Eshwarappa on Thursday, with the panel keen on going ahead, sources told DH. The plan, which involves levying a fee per-square feet, can be a money-spinner for the government.

If approved, lakhs of properties will come under e-Swathu, the official rural property database, making them eligible for registration and bank loans.

At the moment, authorities are unable to bring illegal properties that have come up in rural areas (panchayat limits) under e-Swathu and issue Forms 9 and 11, which are essentially instruments to collect property tax.

“The problem is, lots of properties have an order for conversion (agricultural to non-agricultural), but they won’t have approval for the layout. Or, the property will have just the layout approval,” an official said.

“We have now proposed liberalising this regime. As long as there’s a title deed and road access without any encroachment, the property will be brought under e-Swathu by levying penalties. This takes the form of regularisation,” the official explained.

Although authorities came up with a mechanism to issue Forms 9 and 11A (akin to the BBMP’s ‘A’ Khata), the e-Swathu system does not accept them, causing hardship to citizens.

In January 2017, the Supreme Court stayed the Akrama-Sakrama scheme that sought to regularise unauthorised buildings for a fee. To steer clear of this, the proposed rural scheme will not cover properties that come under the jurisdiction of local planning authorities (such as the BDA or BIAAPA) even if they are geographically in a rural area.

The RDPR department has proposed five categories of properties that can be regularised: irregular properties outside local planning area and gramatana; sites on private lands; buildings in layout sans approval and conversion order; sites in layouts sans approval and conversion order; sites on private land outside gramatana that have a conversion order, but not layout approval.

Apparently, the Cabinet sub-committee members even discussed the need to convince Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on resolving the legal deadlock over Akrama-Sakrama. Chandrasekhar is the founding-trustee of Namma Bengaluru Foundation that had challenged Akrama-Sakrama in the top court.

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