Property owners in Mangaluru will pay a substantially lower fee to regularise eligible unauthorised land subdivisions after the Karnataka government reduced the charge from 15% to 1%, Mangaluru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) chairman Santhosh Kumar Shetty said on Thursday.
The reduction applies to unauthorised subdivisions registered before March 26, 2011. The government has also introduced a provision to regularise subdivisions registered after that date, which previously had no approval route, by levying a 1% fee, Shetty said.
The measures are part of a wider effort to simplify land and site approval procedures in areas under MUDA. Shetty said three requests made by the authority had been accepted, including changes related to single-site approvals, land conversion and the issuance of mandatory survey sketches.
Under the new arrangement, property owners whose land falls within MUDA’s approved master plan will no longer need to obtain a separate land conversion order from the deputy commissioner or tahsildar before approaching the urban development authority. MUDA can directly approve single sites and layouts based on the land-use zone specified in its master plan, including residential, commercial and industrial categories.
Previously, owners seeking to convert agricultural land had to approach the revenue department and wait for a conversion order before applying to MUDA. Shetty said the process often took months. The change shifts the approval sequence for properties covered by the approved master plan and removes one step from the application process.
The government has also addressed delays involving survey sketches required for site and layout approvals in urban and rural areas. Earlier, the Urban Property Registration Office issued sketches for urban properties, while the Assistant Director of Land Records office handled requests in rural areas. The temporary suspension of sketch issuance by the urban registration office and delays in receiving certified sketches from rural land-records offices had stalled applications, according to Shetty.
Under the new mechanism, the Deputy Director of Land Records and taluk-level Assistant Director of Land Records offices will coordinate directly with MUDA to facilitate the timely issuance of sketches. The arrangement is intended to reduce delays between land-records offices and the authority during the approval process.
MUDA will also establish a public helpdesk at the entrance of its office within a month. The facility is intended to improve access to information and allow applicants to check the status of their files. Shetty said preparations were under way to make file-status information more accessible to the public.
Shetty described the fee reduction and procedural changes as a major achievement for the region and credited district minister U T Khader’s efforts. The implementation of the revised regularisation provisions, direct coordination on survey sketches and the public helpdesk will determine how quickly pending applications move through the approval system.
