The mining mafia is ruling the roost in Uttarakhand as an ongoing anti-mining campaign indicates, and so does the land mafia. Registry of the same land being done many a time tends to bolster people’s perception that they are at the mercy of the land mafias. Expressing serious concern over multiple registries of the same land during his late Thursday night address to the district administrations through video conferencing (VC), Chief Minister Harish Rawat asked the revenue secretary to formulate a strong mechanism in conjunction with the district administrations to check such bogus registries of the same land or property in the state.
He expressed the view that that even the senior Government officials are no serious to stop such illegal practices. “Now it is high time that the officials take all the necessary measures so that greater degree of transparency could be maintained in the sale and purchase of lands and bogus registries of the same property checked,” he stressed. More so, Rawat directed the officials concerned to provide all the necessary information to the purchaser about the land.
All such land—related matters must be computerised, he said. While addressing the officials concerned of the Champawat district over VC, he also asked the registrars to verify the land registries on a weekly basis, asking the respective district magistrates to look into these at his level too. Mention worthy, among many parts of the hill State, Nainital district is one of the most sought-after places for the property dealers.
However, despite increase in the circle rates by the State Government, collection of revenue from the stamp duty after registry of land is quite low this fiscal in Nainital. The officials concerned said the Nainital district has so far received only about Rs39 crore as stamp duty from registry of land while the target is Rs75 crore set for the current financial year.
The officials have attributed the low collection of the revenue from registry works to the introduction of new circle rates in November 2014. They are of the view that revision of circle rates in November 2014 has led to the decrease in total number of land registries which have only resulted in less collection of revenue in the form of stamp duty so far this financial year. The concern that the Chief Minister has raised might also account for the dismal collection of revenue for the State exchequer from this sector.