UPOR to be a reality soon, concerns remain

A SOLID PROOF OF Property ownership

DH PHOTO/RAMU MASTAIAH

The land and property prices are at a premium in the city of Bengaluru. As a result, today land scams dominate the legal scene, while many properties do not have clear ownership records.

A study conducted by Mckinsey in India showed that India loses 1.3% of its potential growth due to poorly maintained land records. Much of the registration process in India does not result in valid ownership titles. Hence, more than 70 per cent of legal disputes are land-based, says a policy brief on Urban Property Ownership Record (UPOR) prepared in 2018 by Bengaluru-based Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC).

It lists an unnatural increase in the demand for urban property, the creation of fake documents, ‘benami’ and fraudulent land transactions, insufficient checks/controls at various official levels for monitoring irregularities etc as the problems associated with urban land transactions. UPOR was envisioned as a solution to eliminate these problems.

What is UPOR?

As per the Karnataka Land Revenue (KLR) Act of 1964 and KLR Rules of 1966, the state’s Revenue Department has been mandated to prepare, maintain and preserve spatial and nonspatial data relating to ownership of land for urban properties in urban areas of Karnataka.

UPOR is a record that captures the location, dimension, area, ownership details and legality of a property. It is supposed to serve as a trusted record for all transactions and will prove property ownership for all regulatory and legal purposes.

The concept of property cards is not new. According to the Karnataka Land Registration Act, a PR card is compulsory for registrations.

There was a city survey done in 1969-79 using plane tables and theodolites — a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes.

The property records (PR) based on this survey were issued in 1985, when Bengaluru, with 100 wards, was ruled by Bengaluru City Corporation. However, the increase in the number of buildings in the gap of 15 years made the survey irrelevant and the card became useless, say officials.

After many pilots and trials in cities including Shivamogga and Mangaluru, the project took off in Bengaluru in 2018. A drone survey was initiated to cover the entire city. In between the project hit many hurdles but resumed again in 2022. The drone survey is over in 157 wards. About 10-15 wards with sensitive and congested areas where there are undeclared slums are yet to be mapped.

Once the survey is completed and data from BBMP, BDA etc are mapped to it and cross-checked, a draft property record card will be issued. People who want to file disputes are given 30 days. After this, a final UPOR card will be issued.

Privacy concerns

C N Sreedhara, Commissioner of Survey Settlement & Land Records Department, Karnataka, says people are reluctant to share documents even if the department goes door to door to collect them. This is because sometimes the property may have been rented out. People may also not be aware of why they have to share documents. Many a time, people with more than one property may be reluctant to reveal it.

D R Prakash, a Bengalurean, points at the problems in the process as the reason for people’s mistrust and fear. He says the Revenue Department sent people to homes without much publicity to survey the dimensions.

He explains an incident from two months ago. “A woman came carrying a form, asked for documents, and said they will issue a card. She refused to show us the form. Her identity card showed she was a peon temporarily appointed, only upto April. The person ran away when we questioned her,” he adds.

“Even voter data has been misused. How can we trust such people with property documents?” he asks. This is indeed the worry of many property owners. However, there is more to the reluctance.

BBMP introduced Self-Assessment Scheme (SAS) in 2008, where people can self-declare the type of property or dwelling they live in, after which the system will calculate the tax automatically. This data is taken by the Revenue Department as the base for UPOR.

Prakash says SAS data may be ridden with many mistakes. “Many people might have adjusted the details in SAS to match the tax paid by them previously. The BBMP has never cross-checked it. Therefore the data in SAS is not fully correct.”

“UPOR aims to fix these problems. But once the mismatch is fixed in the UPOR card, what will the tax be based on? Will it be on the UPOR card or on SAS?” asks Prakash. He fears mismatches in the data of BBMP and Revenue Departments will create different data sets which will lead to more problems.

Illegality a major issue

Lack of documents, insufficient documents where the properties are sold as plots without conversion or in the case of ancestral properties, properties with B khata (issued for tax collection purposes) that have violations, mismatch or non-matching of data with that of official records — these are the other issues hindering the progress of document collection process.

In July 2022, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai decided to legalise all B khata properties. In Bengaluru alone, there are more than 6 lakh such properties. Before this, many announcements related to legalising land conversion violations in the Akrama-Sakrama scheme were made. But they never took off due to legal hurdles.

All such properties will be clearly identified in UPOR, along with litigations and legality issues.

What happens when the information provided by the BBMP itself is wrong? “The entries in the corporation documents are considered and compared with revenue records to identify the flow of rights and to identify the owner as of date. Corporation records alone do not identify ownership,” says Sreedhara, adding that if the document issued by the BBMP is faulty, the responsibility lies with BBMP and not the Revenue Department. Revenue records prevail upon corporation entries.

People are confused about similarities between e-aasthi scheme of the BBMP and UPOR. Dhananjaya Padmanabhachar, co-ordinator of Karnataka Home Buyers Forum, e-aasthi scheme which is claimed to be a proof of ownership also captures the undivided share of the land for apartments. However, officials say it is only for the sake of paying taxes and not a proof of ownership like UPOR.

Padmanabhachar says that for apartments, the UPOR captures the super-built-up area, dimensions of the apartment etc. but it does not capture the undivided share of the land for apartments. “The scheme suits individual properties well, but there are loopholes in the case of apartments,” he says.

Revenue department officials agree they cannot inspect each and every apartment and the dimensions are based on the sanctioned plan. There is no clarity on the properties not listed in the sanctioned plan.

Is UPOR compulsory for all?

Yes, it is. “Other documents don’t necessarily prove the ownership of the property. Khata is required for paying taxes. Since this is the amalgamation of all records with the BBMP, BDA and revenue departments, it proves the ownership,” says Sreedhara.

All land transactions since the inception of the survey number till date will be recorded for a property, which makes it easy to identify illegalities if any in the property, he adds.

Sreedhar lists the benefits of having the card. “Ownership is proved without a doubt. Dimensions of the property are captured through drones and by conducting ground surveys, so are highly accurate. All transactions of the properties/land and mutations are automated. Legal verification and getting bank loans become easy for buyers when the owner wants to sell them.”

When the project completes, identifying encroached government land becomes easy. This is why the government wants to finish the project soon. Cards will not be issued to properties identified to be located on government lands and in buffer zones. “In case of buffer zone violations around lakes, the UPOR will go by the revenue records compared with documents available with the BBMP,” says Sreedhar.

Officials say every ward office had kiosks set up to receive applications and documents. But since people did not come forward, the kiosks were wound up. Now people can submit documents in the Revenue Department office at K R Circle, says Sreedhar. Those who have vacant sites can also apply for UPOR online by providing the necessary documents.

“Everyone should share documents physically or online. Details of litigations if any should be added so that all transactions can be checked,” says Sreedhar. He says the issue of draft PR cards has been done for more than 1.4 lakh properties. The process is on hold now and will resume after the elections.

“The government’s planning is good, but the implementation of UPOR is problematic,” says Prakash. “First issue the draft UPOR card based on the data available with the Revenue Department. Property owners will then come with objections if any in 30 days,” he adds.