Land acquisition in TN -- The labryinth path - III

We have porumbokku land that can be allotted by the revenue department for building purposes. This is one stream through which land for building comes. The other stream could be privately owned lands which could have been classified as private barren land or classified as agricultural earlier (fertile or tharisu) and due to years of non-usage of it for agricultural purposes could come into the category of "land not for agriculture". So through three means i.e. govt. owned porambokku; private owned erstwhile agricultural-turned-barren land; private owned barren land could be allowed by govt. for residential building allotment. The porambokku to residential plot conversion is simple and does not always become an item for cheating as the ownership and records are with revenue department (govt. ), so no issues. Revenue department allots a vast of porombokku land to town planning office of municipality or metropolitan development authority of a big metropolis, an another govt. department. It is this department that takes the porambokku land, forms a "layout" and then sells them as plot to individuals.

Private owned land goes into ownership change by the way of sales to another person or title transferred to legal heirs according to a will or other form of legal transfers. Thus a single piece of a privately owned barren land becomes part and more legal complications. Added to it, when the part of land that is title transferred was in the name of a minor and it is used by his/her guardian, more legal complications comes into picture. Let us take the simplest case, i.e. assuming a privately owned a piece of barren land is owned solely by one person. Then it means that s/he should have got patta for that land. A patta for a piece of land (agricultural or otherwise) is given be revenue department to an indidivual owner upon legal title to that person. To provide a patta to a person who legally owns a piece of land the revenue department conducts a "survey" i.e. measurement of that land noting its means and boundaries. It is very vital information, otherwise a stretch of land cannot be located by its dimensions and cannot be said as "this is what belongs to that person". Typically the survey of a land covers its dimensions i.e. length, breadth in all directions to come up to a closed circuit (to tell in engineering lingua). Then its adjacent land marks are identified (eg. north is bound by this survey no. land; east by 40 feet road; west by that survey number land; south west by porambokku; south by 30 feet road etc). A sketch of this closed circuit showing all these boundaries are drawn. The sketch, and a filled-in form mentioning the name of the owner is arrived at, then a number is given to it, which is popularly known as survey/patta number (that is unique for the locality that is mentioned) and these are sent by the surveyor to the thasildhar's approval. After verifying all the details, not only sent by the surveyor but also the govt. records of that area provided to him earlier by the VAO of that area, the thasildhaar approves and signs in that document. It is this "signed" document plus the sketch, is called as 'patta' and is given to that private land owner. This gets into revenue dept records thus acknowledging that person as legal owner of that land. This enables the revenue department to collect land tax from that land owner (the process of survey and patta is similar for barren land and other lands including agricultural land). Also this is the legal document that is judicially accepted to show a person as owner of that piece of land. Pattas are given in such fashion for both agricultural and barren land of private parties. Hence, in broader classification lands are divided as patta lands and the govt. lands.

Now a patta holder of a barren land sells this land to another person. A financial transaction takes place hence a fee for this transaction has to be paid by the buyer to the govt. and the govt. would "register" this transaction and thus comes the registration department (or) the registrar office into the picture. This registration dept. records this transaction after supposedly checking (need not verifying/validating) the patta of the seller and registers the sale deed between the buyer and seller. It collects a registration fee and also a fee to transfer the name in patta from the current owner to the new owner. This tranfer fee ideally has to be sent to the revenue department. The revenue department has to verify & validate and has to update its record with the new owner's name so that when the new owner applies for patta in his/her name it can provide one for that land.

...to be concluded

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