BENGALURU: Following Supreme Court directions, the Karnataka government is all set to crack the whip on illegal residential layouts by confiscating them.
On December 17, 2024, the Supreme Court had said unauthorised constructions cannot be legitimised merely due to administrative delays, passage of time or monetary investment. Post-construction violations too should trigger swift corrective action, including demolition of the illegal part and penalties for erring officials, the court stated.
On Friday, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the order is applicable to only those layouts coming up now and in the future.
“All DCs have been instructed to confiscate unauthorised layouts as the Supreme Court has cracked the whip against state governments. CM Siddaramaiah has also instructed us,” he said.
“There are many violations. Layouts have been built on agricultural lands and roads are not laid as per guidelines. This cannot be tolerated,” he stressed.
On issuing title deeds to families living in hamlets such as ‘hadis’, ‘tandas’ or ‘hattis’, he said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will hand over documents to one lakh such families in Hospet on May 20, marking two years of Congress government. Digital title deeds will be issued by converting these settlements into revenue villages, he added. By December 2025, title deeds will be given to two lakh such families, he added.
“Earlier, title deeds were issued on paper. In some cases, they are worthless without the original. Now, the government will register the land through a purchase deed and the local body will also create a ‘khath’. Beneficiaries need not run from one government office to another,” he said.
The long-standing complaint of farmers on podi, which is sub-division of agriculture land, will be settled, he said. “Though farmers possess land, they have no documents other than their names on title deeds. A state-wide podi campaign has been launched since last January. Revenue and Survey Departments have jointly conducted a lot of studies and formulated simplified rules to correct podis and issued a notification,” he said.
The previous BJP government in its entire five-year tenure, corrected podi of only 5,800 people, but since January, 88,886 such cases have been resolved, he claimed. The revenue department has scanned 18.28 crore pages of original land records out of 80-90 crore pages across the state, to digitise all documents by December-end, he said.
People can access them by applying online through ‘sakala’ soon, he said. Around 1.34 crore survey sketches and ‘Aakaar Bands’ (consisting of extent of land) of the Survey Department have been digitised, he added. Revenue and Survey Departments will be computerised 99% by next year, he added.