The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has come down heavily on the Land and Development Office (L&DO) attached with the Ministry Housing and Urban Affairs for not revising the rent of leased properties (Nazul lands) since its allotment.

Most the properties are located on the prime land in the national Capital. The CAG also pulled up the L&DO for not having authentic figures of its leased properties.

Of the 29 properties seen by the CAG, ground rent was due for revision in 21 properties which includes 29, Aurangzeb Road, Bal Bharati School, Pusa Road, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Andrews Ganj ,Indian National Trade Union Congress, Bhai Veer Singh Marg, F-2, Connaught Place, VIMHANS Hospital, Nehru Nagar, Taj Man Singh hotel, Sen Nursing Home, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, Le Meridien hotel, St Stephen’s hospital, Tis Hazari (ground rent was not revised for two out of three plots allotted to St Stephen’s Hospital).

Citing a case of  F-2 leased property of Connaught Place, the CAG said in its compliance audit report on the Administration of Nazul Lands by Land and Development Office (L&DO) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, that the perpetual lease was executed in March 1925.

“The ground rent was fixed at the rate of `330 per annum, however, the same has not been realised after January 1981. No demand letter has been issued to the lessee for payment of the ground rent after January 1981,” the report said.

Taking the second case study, the CAG said CITU was paying ground rent as fixed at the time of allotment (ground rent for the period 2015-18 and 2019-21 was not paid) whereas AITUC did not pay any ground rent since allotment. The premium and ground rent were fixed provisionally as the land rates were due for revision from April 1, 2000. After the revision of land rates in June 2017, the rates were revised to `929.70 lakh per acre in case of CITU and  `447.30 lakh per acre in case of AITUC but the revised premium and ground rent were not intimated to the lessee which resulted in outstanding dues amounting to  `2.63 crore up to March 2021. CITU and AITUC were allotted (February 2009 and May 2005 respectively) land measuring 504 square metres at Pushp Vihar and two plots having an area of 476 square metres each at DDU Marg at premium (land cost) of  `88 lakh per acre and annual ground rent at the rate of 2.5 per cent of premium.

As per the report, the ground rent was revised belatedly in the case of Daily Milap building, Daily Tej building, Gulab Singh & Sons building at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, Kayson Enterprises, Sardar Patel Marg,  17, Jor Bagh  and Vidya Bhawan Girls Higher Secondary School, New Rajinder Nagar.

The second rent revision of Alankar cinema building at Lajpat Nagar was not done since 2017.

There are cases where the ground rent, wherever recorded in the Ground Rent Register, did not match with the information given in the property files. Nazul lands are those lands or properties which were acquired in the year 1911 for the formation of the Capital of India at Delhi and these properties were given on leases for residential, commercial and institutional purposes. There are about 60,526 leases of the Central Government land in Delhi, out of which 34,905 properties have been converted into freehold.

The L&DO in its reply said the revision of ground rent is done at the time of conversion of property from leasehold to freehold, mutation and whenever demands are being issued. In some cases, due to non-submission of documents, the revision could not take place.

On the authentic figures of leased properties, the CAG said the Annual Reports of the Ministry (till 2020-21) has stated that L&DO was responsible for administration of about 60,526 leases of Central Government in Delhi. However, as per the Press Information Bureau release dated March 7, 2019, L&DO has started working on GIS-based mapping of all its approximately 65,000 properties. Further, during the Audit, L&DO provided a list of 46,696 leased properties, but did not provide the current status of 46 missing files. Thus, even after 10 years from the previous audit, the authentic figures of the leased properties were not yet available with L&DO,” the CAG said in its report, tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.