Mumbai: The Federation of Grantees of Government Lands (FGGL) will hold a protest meeting against the government’s notification to convert leasehold lands to freehold. They say that the notification is riddled with errors and certain clauses will only breed corruption.
“The language used in the notification in Marathi and that in English have different interpretations. In Marathi, it says that the purpose for which the land is granted should have completed five years of use, only then the collector will allow it to be made into freehold. But in the English version, it says that the purpose for which the land is granted should have commenced its use in five years, only then will it be allowed to be made freehold,” said Salil Rameshchandra, president, FGGL.
Clauses added without taking suggestions from public
The gazette notification was issued on March 27. It has added clauses, without taking any suggestions and objections given by the public, to the additional two clauses it has introduced.
The first clause is objectionable as it says that for any non-cooperative housing society that has to pay a premium of over Rs1 crore, such proposals have to be approved by the Revenue Department and not at the collector level.
Property cards should have names of societies
“This has many problems that will make the work for freehold very difficult. The Revenue Ministry, which deals with such cases, is full of red tape. In response to a 2018 RTI it said that in three years they have received 19 proposals and only two were approved. The notification does not consider the suggestions and objections we have given but has come out with some zamindari bureaucratic rules, which will only breed corruption,” Rameshchandra said.
Secondly, many land parcels granted to individuals now have housing societies on them. As per Maharashtra Ownership of Flats Act, 1963, the property card should bear the names of these societies, but this has not happened. There is a lot of difference in the way these cases are treated by the various collector offices. In one case, a society that went for deemed conveyance was asked to pay ₹2 crore premium based on the ready-reckoner at the time of the agreement.
"We will show the government how important middle class is," says general secretary of FGGL
The proposal to segregate cooperative housing societies and non-cooperative housing societies seems to be based on earlier freehold conversions, wherein many wealthy people have converted their lands to freehold. Such individual land holdings are much less and a large number of co-operative housing societies that have come up on these individual lands will suffer.
“We request the government to rescind such orders. Our old buildings are in a bad shape and only deteriorating. In the 2022 monsoon a building in Naik Nagar, Kurla East collapsed, killing 19 people. But it seems that the state government has not taken this incident seriously. Enough is enough. We will show the government how important the middle class is, and for that purpose we are holding a protest meeting on Saturday at Kala Nagar Society Hall at 6pm,” said Vikramaditya Dhamdhere, general secretary, FGGL.
