LRS applicants in Adilabad stare at additional financial burden

The State government issued a memo no. 8235 to impose an additional charge of 0.5 percent on vacant land.

Adilabad: Applicants of Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS), who submitted documents four years ago, are worried about the additional financial burden with the government set to collect a fee based on the new value of lands revised recently.

As many as 87,021 applications were received in 12 municipalities such as Adilabad, Nirmal, Bhainsa, Khanapur, Kyathanpalli, Chennur, Luxettipet, Naspur, Bellampalli, Mancherial, Kaghaznagar and Mandamarri across erstwhile Adilabad district under the scheme in 2020. The then government collected Rs.1,000 per application.

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Of them, 36,239 applications were processed, while 1,838 applications were rejected and 11,094 applications were found to be shortfall. A total of 3,363 applicants were asked to pay a fee, while 127 applicants got final approved proceedings, fetching an income of Rs.38.14 lakh to the government.

However, On July 30, the current State government issued a memo no. 8235, instructing the civic bodies to collect the regularisation fee based on a new land registration value which came into force from August 1. It will also impose an additional charge of 0.5 percent on vacant land. Both Revision of land value and vacant land tax will cause financial burden on the eligible applicants.

Municipal officials said the applications would be processed in three phases. In the first phase, applications would be classified into clusters based on survey numbers. Applicants will be informed if their properties are situated in prohibited lands or if they need to submit required documents for processing the applications. In the second phase, officials of revenue, irrigation, town planning or Panchayat department would inspect the plots and raise objections if the house sites violate norms. Width of roads, technical aspects of the properties will also be verified. Notices would be issued to the applicants asking to furnish documents and pay regularization fees.

In the third phase, orders will be issued regularizing the plots. The final decision will be made at municipal commissioners, urban development authority, additional collector and collector-level. Norms will be strictly followed in the three phases. The whole process will likely take three months.