Over 1.5 crore houses in Karnataka fall outside village maps, remain illegal
BENGALURU: While villages and towns are pushing borders and growing extensions, administration and governance still depends on old village maps, many dating back to the early Independence era. This anomaly has resulted in about 1.2 crore legitimate properties lying within the legal village and gramathana boundaries, but about 1.5 crore houses and residential units falling outside the "legitimate boundaries" of villages.
With residents using all amenities like village roads, water and power, the onus is on the administration to bring this humongous number of properties on to legitimate maps, and give them legal recognition. The Svamitwa Scheme, recently inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been formulated to address these issues.
While Union Government authorities have said that panchayats will receive money and support to implement this scheme, experts say they have not addressed the practical challenges of the issue. Most of these new properties are given ad hoc papers and identities, and survive on documents like ‘Form 10’, and need to be regularised, say officials in the survey department.
"Every 15-20 years, the number of houses in villages almost doubles, as children move out and build their own homes. This phenomena is seen in rural and urban areas. Yet, over the past 70 years, most town and village maps have not been redrawn to legitimise the 'illegal' houses in these extensions. Technically, they fall outside the town or village," say survey department experts.
Most survey maps show that houses in extensions often outnumber the legitimate houses within the legal village or town boundaries. This issue was taken up by the State government with the Union Government last September, but the Centre failed to comprehensively address it, say officials.
"The Union government only said they would give legal papers to those within the map boundaries, but failed to address the issue of new houses in extensions. The Centre said State governments must take up the issue," said an official.
'Many laws need to be addressed before extending village boundaries'
Additional Director, Survey department, CN Sridhar said they are working on this issue. "We are working on villages which have less than 5,000 houses and are putting together maps with the present number of houses. There is a rural development department sub-committee looking into it," he said. But he admitted that it is not easy as there is a minefield of laws which needs to be addressed.
Krishna Byregowda, an ex-RDPR minister, said "Villages have grown beyond the boundaries which are not legally recognised by panchayat authorities. Now they are in a grey zone. The boundary has to be extended, but this leads to practical challenges. The State and Central governments need to find a solution."
RDPR Minister KS Eshwarappa said, "We will address this issue. If there are illegal encroachments, they will also be dealt with. In one place, a village kalyani has been encroached and people have built houses. We will identify and clear all these."