Suman Chakraborti TNN
Sale of leasehold residential property in Salt Lake is going to be legalized soon.
The Mamata Banerjee government plans to allow transfer of lease in the township for a fee. Most of the land in Salt Lake belongs to the urban development department and the government will fix the fee.
The state Cabinet meeting is likely to discuss the proposal on Tuesday. Salt Lake residents had been waiting for this for a long time.
If things go according to plan, plot-holders in Salt Lake can legally monetize their property by paying the government stamp duty, registration fees or some other levy.
“Leasehold land won’t turn into freehold land. We are mulling allowing transfer of lease but only with the permission of the government,” urban development minister Firhad Hakim said.
The government will continue to enjoy ownership rights and also earn revenue that it had missed out on earlier when property changed hands in Salt Lake under cover.
The Bidhannagar Municipality could never stop the under hand deals unless the original lessee walked up to register a formal complaint.
The proposal was doing the rounds since the days of the Left Front government but was allowed only for commercial properties. A case is pending in the court over the change of a commercial property into a residential highrise in HB block.Govt to fix lease fee per cottah
Once the proposal to legalise the sale of residential plots in Salt Lake gets through in the state Cabinet on Tuesday, the government will evaluate the plots in the township and fix a price for the transfer of lease per cottah.
Illegal sale of plots in Salt Lake caught the notice of the Mamata Banerjee government soon after the Trinamool Congress came to power in May, 2011. The government has been trying to find a way out since then.
Plots in Salt Lake were leased for a 999-year tenure in the 1970s to enable middleclass people to settle in the township on the condition that the leaseholders cannot transfer their plots.
According to the present rules, residential plots cannot be sold or transferred as the plot holders are actually lease holders and not owners. But later, some genuine problems cropped up.
The family increased at least by two-fold within a span of 50 years and the lessee could not do justice to all his/her children, because leasehold property can’t be partitioned and distributed among the heirs.
This prompted some to sell out the property illegally for a huge amount of money. According to estimates, out of the 12,000 plots in the township, almost 35% of the plots have been transferred or sold illegally. Plots measuring a cottah, which were originally leased out for about Rs 5,000, have been sold illegally for lakhs, say sources. Many such transfers are in the process with the help of touts and many houses have been illegally sold more than once.
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