BBMP issues 3,000 provisional new khatas to property owners

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has issued around 3,000 provisional new khatas to the property owners in Bengaluru.

The facility to obtain new khata on a dedicated website (https://bbmp.karnataka.gov.in/newkhata) was launched on January 13.

The BBMP also issued 2.71 lakh e-khatas to property owners till March 19. According to the data shared by the civic body, a total of 2.87 lakh applications were received for securing the digital document.

The BBMP has digitised 23 lakh property records for the purpose of issuing e-khata. E-khatas are issued to owners who already have manual khata and new khatas are given to owners without manual records.

BBMP Special Commissioner (Revenue), Munish Moudgil told The Hindu that nearly 3,000 people applied for new khata and all have secured provisional khatas. “We are now instantly issuing provisional khata to the applicants and later carry out verification of documents and properties physically before issuing the final khata. The verification will ensure transparency in ownership, keeping away fraudsters and also avoid issuance of khata to those already having e-khata.” The property owners have to pay property tax from the date of the registration of the property to secure the new khata.”

Mr. Moudgil further said: “About 80% of the owners who have applied for the document have been paying tax despite not having a manual document. This means the properties are under the tax net. The rest have to pay the tax.”

There are roughly about 5 lakh such properties in the city. However, the BBMP does not have a database on the quantum of such properties in the tax net. This system will enable the revenue department to gather data on properties complying with the tax and those that have failed. Also, as tax payment is mandatory for new khata, the system will boost the revenue. The BBMP this fiscal collected ₹4,604 crore tax and reached 88.36% of the total target. The BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath recently directed the officials to achieve the stipulated target of ₹5,210 crore.

Another BBMP official said the civic body is now focussed on property tax collection till March end. The issuance of e-khata and new khata will be expedited after April 1. The BBMP is also planning a 5% rebate for those securing e-khata before July 31.