THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The revenue department’s lack of clarity has left in pain thousands of applicants who have been waiting for months to complete the mutation process of the converted land they had bought. The issue is related to the land once converted from wet-paddy land to dry land. When a landowner converts land thus, the basic tax register records it as converted land. The problem arises when someone buys that particular land.
It is alleged that revenue officials refuse to complete the mutation process unless the word ‘converted’ is inserted in all places in the deed where the phrase ‘dry land’ is written.
With the revenue department having made all services digital, only one option is available for the applicant while applying for mutation online – whether the land is wet or dry.
When a person wants to change the pattern of their land, they should submit an application to the revenue divisional officer (RDO) for land pattern conversion in each district. It is then handed over to the village offices concerned. The village officer would then inspect the land and submit a report along with the sketch of the land to the RDO. The RDO would take a final decision on the basis of this report.
To prevent land conversion, the Left government had introduced the Kerala Conservation of Paddy-Land and Wetland Act, 2008. However, to help the homeless poor, the government has allowed conversion of land up to five cents in urban areas and up to 10 cents in panchayats. To simplify the mutation process of such land, the state government has asked local bodies not to insist on documents about the conversion of land up to the permissible extent. According to applicants, however, the revenue department officials are insisting on correcting the deed to include the phrase ‘converted dry land’. Suresh Justus of Kattakkada, after buying a five-cent plot to build a house, has now beentrying for months to register a sale deed at the Ottasekharamangalam village office and the Kattakkada taluk office.
“The nature of the land has been changed to dry land as per the order of the RDO. This has also been included in the sale deed with government order number. However, when I approached the revenue officials to do the mutation of the land, the officials insisted that we correct dry land as converted dry land wherever it is written. To correct a sale deed, it will cost money, which would be an additional debt for me,” Suresh said. Such a stand is being taken after the land was converted from paddy land to dry land and a fair value fixed for it, he added.
“When an ordinary individual is stuck in such a situation, middle agents will appear and promise to resolve it with a bribe,” a revenue official said.