BENGALURU: Here is some relief in store for people who, for the past one month, have been struggling to get a khata certificate from Bangalore Development Authority. In a bid to ensure transparency in BDA, the Chief Secretary in an order on March 28 had mandated only online issual of khata certificates. However, it had not been complied with in any of the four revenue offices of BDA.
On Tuesday, Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar held a meeting with BDA officials and asked them to implement the order without any delay.
Among the property owners who struggled to get khata certificates for their new property was Santhosh Patil, who was allotted a site in the Block II of KG Layout. “When I went to apply for my certificate over a month ago at the BDA office in Vijayanagar, I was told to do it online. I did it but khata is neither issued online nor offline,” he added.
The Nadaprabhu Kempe Gowda Layout Open Forum, comprising many allottees of Kempe Gowda Phase-II, has objected to the fact that online processing was not taking place at the Vijayanagar office. TNIE spoke to the Revenue officers to find out why the online system was not taking off.
Dayanand, Revenue Officer at Vijayanagar, said since the revenue office was in a dilapidated state, it would be shifted to Nagarbhavi shortly. “We will implement the new system from our new office,” he said.
Another official said since the RT Nagar BDA office is also in a dilapidated state, issuance of online katha would commence only after it is shifted.
Dhanalakshmi, Revenue Officer at Banashankari, said there were some initial problems in getting the IT infrastructure in place. “We are processing online applications now,” she said.
Revenue Officer of HSR Layout Ashok Kumar said all BDA properties under the area’s jurisdiction had been transferred to BBMP and so the khatas could only be issued by the Corporation. Meanwhile, a senior BDA official said that there was tremendous reluctance to accept the online mode by revenue offices as it puts an end to bribe payment. Revenue officers, however, denied the accusation.