Revenue site owners buy revenue sites and get struck without kathas and can’t resell these sites in future, in and around Bengaluru.
Revenue site owners are unable to get their kathas from the authorities after buying revenue sites. This will affect them in the future as they won’t get any permissions and also will be unable to resell these sites.
Revenue sites are illegal because according to the government, agricultural lands should not be used for non-agricultural purposes without conversions. But people buy revenue sites because they get it at an affordable price like Rs1500-2000 per sq feet compared to conversion sites.
Manjunath M S, Owner of revenue site in K Gollahalli said,”I got my site registered eight months back but I’m not getting my B katha done in Panchayat. I also got to know I won’t get any bank loans or plan approval to construct house in these sites.”
A katha sites are legal in nature which follow government norms, paid taxes and other bylaws. This helps the owner while applying for loans and reselling.
B katha is a temporary katha given to site owners whose properties don’t follow government norms, not paying taxes and not following other bylaws.
In and around Bengaluru, there are many revenue layouts, and in K Gollahalli Panchayat alone, there are nearly 40-50 revenue layouts which consist of 1500-2000 sites in total. However, people who buy revenue sites has to face problems after buying these sites.
K M Mahesh, Owner, M S Developer said,” Farmers will be in need of money that’s why they sell lands to us and to make conversion it takes a lot of time. We can’t make them wait till conversion happens, so we make revenue sites and sell it at a very affordable price. Because conversion sites cost nearly Rs 4000-5000 per sq feet.”
The Panchayat Vice President Krishnammurty says they have raised this issue in the Zilla Panchayat meetings as well as in front of the Member of legislative Assembly (MLA).
Krishnamurty, Vice President, K Gollahalli Panchayat said,” If they do conversion, with electronic katha(E kathas) we can get some revenue to our panchayat. So that it helps us to run our panchayat with those funds but nothing is changing. This also benefits some farmers who are in need of money so we are not stressing on it much.”
Expert says, in conversion layouts spaces should be left for park and CA sites. In addition to cut the cost they don’t follow the rules.
Chandrashekar S R, Panel Advocate in KIADB (Karnataka Industrial and Development Board) said,” The state government has filed a petition in Supreme Court seeking to stop the registration of revenue sites. Therefore till then the registration should be stopped in the state.”
