The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) office.
Credit: DH Photo
Bengaluru: With citizens facing hurdles while applying for e-khatas, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has decided to do away with the need for encumbrance certificate (EC) to complete the online application process.
This change is likely to help many residents in Bengaluru as brokers have been demanding as much as Rs 5,000 to quickly issue the EC extract of properties registered prior to 2004.
The encumbrance certificate (EC) will continue to be mandatory for properties being registered for sale or purchase.
Munish Moudgil, BBMP's Special Commissioner (Revenue), told DH, that modifications will come into effect from Tuesday. "The EC will be needed only if people want to sell or register the properties. Since 98% of the people do not transact, we will keep the EC requirement optional," he said. So far, he said, about 500 people have got e-khatas and five lakh people have downloaded a draft copy of e-khata from the website.
Earlier this month, the BBMP had published the draft e-khatas of approximately 22 lakh properties on its website allowing residents to view their property records. On the same page, there is a provision to apply for the final e-khata by submitting documents such as registered deed number, e-KYC of Aadhaar, self assessment scheme (SAS) application number, property photo etc. All these documents are mandatory to get the e-khata from the "comfort of one's home" without visiting the BBMP's assistant revenue office (ARO).
EC struggle
M S Shankar, a resident of Krishnarajapuram, said he was able to obtain the EC of his apartment online in three days and without paying a bribe as the property was registered recently. He, however, added the properties registered prior to 2004 are finding it difficult as the sub-registrar office takes a minimum of 10 days.
"Since the BBMP is not accepting ECs older than seven days, I am struggling to upload documents of my second property which I bought many decades ago,” he said.
T M Varadarajan, a resident of south Bengaluru, also shared a similar plight. "My property was registered in 1986. Initially, the BBMP had sought ECs from the date of property registration. I had to take manual EC extract of up to 2004 and digital EC of the last 20 years. But the BBMP website did not accept my EC. I could fix the issue only after the BBMP's higher-ups intervened. Not everyone can such assistance," he said.
Other than the EC, Varadarajan pointed out that the website has several bugs but the BBMP is slowly addressing them one by one. "This is a great initiative but the civic body should have tested it for several months before making e-khata mandatory for property registration."