Gujarat rvenue mnister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said on Tuesday that in an attempt to further relax the process of conversion of new tenure land to old tenure -for agriculture as well as non-agriculture purposes -all district collectors have been instructed to clear all cases approved by the state government worth up to Rs.5 crore, within 15 days. “The collectors have also been asked to inform the applicant immediately once this is done,“ Chudasama said. Incidentally , conversion of new tenure land to old tenure had long been at the centre of many land disputes.

It may be mentioned here that new tenure land cannot be sold while the land in old tenure can be sold. This is why owners of new tenure land want to convert land to old tenure but, so far, this involved payment of huge fees (premiums) to the state government.

Chudasama said, “Now, however, after the latest reform, new tenure land can be converted to old tenure without paying any premium.“

The minister explained that on the basis of officials records, this conversion will be allowed without any premium.

“All applicants whose 15 years of ownership ends on August 15, 2016, will be allowed this benefit,“ he said.

“If the said case does not violate any rule, mamlatdars will have to convert new tenu re land to old tenure without charging any premium,“ Chudasama said.

He further said that there was already a provision under which new tenure agriculture land could be converted to old tenure without any premium after a farmer had owned it for 15 years . “But this was not implemented and this led to a lot of delays and backlog of files,“ Chudasama said.

“Many representations were received on this issue.Hence, after careful consideration, we decided to allow automatic conversion of new tenure land owned by a farmer for more than 15 years to old tenure without any application or process,“ the minister said.

It may be mentioned that in just two months, Chudasamahas has announced several key land revenue reforms, including abolition of NonAgriculture (NA) certification process in town planning (TP) areas.