Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 7: Waking up to the necessity of checking haphazard conversion of agriculture land for non-agricultural purposes, the State Government has for the first time formulated a uniform policy whereby the discretionary powers have been done away with and a detailed mechanism has been set-up to be followed for change of land use. Now, the people will have to pay fee for obtaining the permission from the Government for conversion of agriculture land.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that till date there was no uniform pattern for according permission for conversion of agriculture land for non-agricultural purposes and officers of the Revenue Department were recommending the cases by adopting different yardsticks as a result of which even genuine cases were not getting cleared from the relevant quarters.
Moreover, in the absence of any guidelines the cases were either being delayed unnecessarily or were being submitted to the Revenue Department without proper examination, sources said, adding in some cases no minimum yardstick was being followed for grant of permission at the field level.
“Due to conversion of agriculture land for non-agricultural purposes in haphazard manner the agricultural husbandry was shrinking fast because of raising of colonies, factories, brick kilns, shopping complexes and other commercial establishments”, sources said, adding “though there are sufficient laws which prohibit or restrict the conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes but these laws don’t provide comprehensive procedure to be followed for grant of permission for change of land use”.
In the absence of comprehensive procedure or uniform policy, only discretionary powers were being used by the Revenue Minister to either grant or deny permission as a result of which genuine cases were being rejected while those having links with the higher-ups in the administration were easily obtaining clearance even if the same was not well within the laid down parameters, sources further said.
It is pertinent to mention here that under Section 133-A of the J&K Land Revenue Act, no agriculture land can be put to any other use without obtaining prior permission of the Revenue Minister. Moreover, under Section 13 of the J&K Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976, prior permission of the Revenue Minister or an officer duly authorized by him in this behalf is required for conversion of agricultural land.
Keeping all these aspects in mind and in order to avoid indiscriminate conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, the Revenue Department on the directions of Minister Incharge Syed Basharat Bukhari has come up with a uniform policy regarding change of land use. The policy has been worked out by a team of officers headed by Deputy Secretary, Ghulam Rasool.
As per the policy issued by Mohammad Ashraf Mir, Commissioner/ Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, a detailed mechanism has been set-up right from enquiry on the application seeking conversion of agriculture land for non-agricultural purposes to the approval by the Administrative Department.
As far as change of land use in Municipal/Urban areas is concerned, the concerned development authority will have to forward the application to the respective Deputy Commissioners within two days for accord of permission in accordance with the land use specified in the Master Plan. However, in case of land falling outside the jurisdiction of Urban areas/Municipal Limits, the applicant can directly approach the Deputy Commissioner.
The Deputy Commissioner after obtaining reports from the revenue field agencies will place the case before the District Level Committee, which after considering the genuineness of the claim will give its recommendations to the Divisional Commissioner for further necessary action. The Divisional Commissioner will submit the case to the Administrative Department along with his opinion/recommendations. In the policy, time-frame has been fixed for the District Level Committee as well as Divisional Commissioner for necessary action at their end.
It has explicitly been mentioned in the policy that no case will be processed for grant of permission for conversion of land which is used for cultivation of saffron; which is against the use specified in the Master Plan of any development authority; irrigated lands where the proposed change of land use is likely to obstruct, bisect or disturb any irrigation channel or any other source of irrigation of the surrounding land holdings etc.
No permission is required for change of the land use in respect of land except paddy, saffron and vegetable growing land for residential purposes subject to the maximum ceiling of two kanals prescribed in Section 13 of the Agrarian Reforms Act. However, utilization of the land falling within the municipal limits or within the jurisdiction of development authorities shall strictly be restricted to the land use specified in the respective Master Plan, the policy said.
In order to ensure that only genuine cases come up for conversion and revenue is generated for the Government, a fee has been fixed in the policy for change of the land use from agricultural to non-agricultural purposes. “The concerned land owner will be charged a fee equivalent to an amount of Rs 5 percentum of the value of the land notified for stamp duty for commercial purposes and at the rate of Rs 3 pecentum for residential and other purposes”, reads the policy.
Follow our WhatsApp channel