Suspecting irregularities in the issuance of ‘A’ khata certificates to buildings that have come up on unapproved layouts, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has constituted a four-member committee to “examine” such complaints.
The civic body suspects the role of revenue officers in illegally issuing ‘A’ khata certificates instead of ‘B’ khata, thereby, causing huge revenue loss to the corporation.
BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath formed the examination committee headed by Jayaram Rampura, Special Commissioner (Finance) with R L Deepak (Revenue) and Dr Harish Kumar (Administration) as members. The team will be assisted by an additional commissioner (Finance).
As per the internal note, the BBMP has received several complaints from zones such as Dasarahalli, RR Nagar, Bommanahalli, Mahadevapura and Yelahanka where the revenue officers have issued ‘A’ khata certificates for buildings that have come up on unapproved layouts.
“This is illegal,” the note states while directing the committee to submit the report in a month.
The BBMP issues ‘A’ khata certificates to buildings that have come up on a converted layout, which has been duly approved by authorities after collecting one-time betterment charges. The buildings, which have come up on revenue sites that do not have approvals, are given ‘B’ khata certificates for the purpose of collecting property tax.
According to the civic body, there are over 6.16 lakh ‘B’ khata properties while there are a little more than 18 lakh properties in Bengaluru. A majority of the unapproved layouts are located in the peripheral areas of Bengaluru.
In the 2022-23 budget, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had promised to examine the possibility of converting properties that have been recorded in the ‘B’ register to the ‘A’ list, but the government appears to have gone slow as it would amount to regularising illegal properties. Instead, the BBMP proposed to drop the clause that allows it to collect double the property tax from ‘B’ khata property holders.