Aug 27 2016 : The Times of India (Ahmedabad)
New Policy Aims To End Corruption In Land Transactions
Chief minister Vijay Rupani has planned major land revenue reforms that are expected to end corruption from the districts to the revenue department at one go.Sources said some of these reforms will be announced within a week or two.
“Currently , there are 27 different desks through which applications seeking approval for land dealings have to cross. In the new policy , the number of desks will be reduced to three or four,“ said a source.
“Further, there are around 1,000 pages of Government Resolutions (GRs) many of which contradict each other. This discrepancy will be removed in the new policy document which will be less than 40 pages long,“ the source said. Under the new policy , district collectors and revenue department will be given a time-frame to decide on land-related cases, sources said. The Revenue Appeal Authority is also a major source of corruption; it takes years to decide petty matters.“All these problems will be addressed soon,“ another source said.
On Friday evening, chief minister Vijay Rupani, deputy CM Nitin Patel and the new state revenue minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama held a two-hour-long meeting with senior officials of the revenue department. The CM gave officials instructions to finalise the new land revenue policy soon.
Sources said Chudasama has already prepared a draft policy for re ready prepared a draft policy for revenue reforms which is expected to make land transactions for farming, real estate, industry and other purposes very easy .
A source close to the development said the new policy will introduce many changes. The non-agriculture (NA) certification process for land in city areas where final or draft town-planning schemes have been announced may be completely abolished. The NA process will also be abolished for land included in Census 2011 as the outgrowth of towns as such land will be automatically considered non-agriculture.
“Currently , owners of land are harassed under various laws such as agriculture land ceiling act and urban land ceiling act,“ a source said.
“There are delays and harassment in the name of conversion of land from old tenure to new tenure and vice-versa; and change in land use from industrial to commercial or residential. All these problems will be addressed in the new policy ,” the source said.
