Flat penalties for regularising houses on revenue land

The state Cabinet on Wednesday decided to fix flat penalties for regularisation of houses constructed on revenue land in rural and urban areas.

Earlier, the government was planning to levy 10% and 20% of the guidance value as regularisation fee.

Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Law Minister T B Jayachandra said fixing the penalty based on the guidance value of the land turned out to be beyond the means of reach of several below poverty line families for whom the regularisation scheme had been introduced.

The Cabinet, Jayachandra said, decided to fix Rs 2,000 as the regularisation fee for houses constructed on 20x30 ft site, Rs 4,000 for sites up to a dimension of 40x60 ft and Rs 4,000 for sites of dimension up to 80x50 ft.

For urban areas, the scheme is applicable for houses constructed on 20x30 sites for which a regularisation fee of Rs 10,000 has been fixed, Jayachandra said. The regularisation scheme has been effected by amending Sections 94C and 94 CC of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act.

The government is planning to extend the last date for receiving applications from encroachers. The last date fixed earlier was March 22, 2016. The new cutoff date is yet to be worked out.

New posts

The Cabinet decided to create 32,000 new posts by March next year to accommodate employees at present hired by municipality contractors across the state. Jayachandra said these employees by and large were exploited by contractors to whom garbage clearance and cleaning work had been entrusted. “These are very poor people and contractors exploit them by not paying their salaries on time. We will create the new posts and absorb them and they will come directly under the municipalities and corporations,” Jayachandra said.

Till the new posts are created, an escrow account will be created to ensure their salaries are paid on time, the minister said.

Jayachandra said new fair price shops would be opened in villages with 300 to 500 ration card holders. Earlier the norm was that fair price shops would be opened for every 500-800 card holders.

Other Cabinet decisions

Price of PDS sugar hiked from Rs 13.5 to Rs 15 per kg with immediate effect.

To check black marketing, provisions of the Central Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act 1980 to be invoked.

Exploration work of 12 ‘C’ category mines to Mineral Exploration Corporation
Limited at a cost of Rs 42.9 crore.

Non-profit company ‘Invest Karnataka’ to be constituted to promote investment in the state.

 Appointment of Ajitsinh R Rana, associate professor, R B Sagar College of Education, Ahmedabad, as joint secretary to Governor Vajubhai Vala.