City MLAs, MP should help

Sir,

The recent Notification by the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) asking the property owners to provide certain ownership documents to enable it to digitise ownership records raises certain fundamental questions with regard to its necessity and the functioning of the MCC. Further it also unnecessarily exposes the property owners to certain risks. Following facts will confirm the fears of the property owners:

1. Every property owner would have got a construction plan “approved” by the MCC and only then carried out the construction of the property in question.

2. At the time of seeking such construction plan for approval, the owner has to compulsorily provide the ownership document/s along with the proposed construction plan.

3. Before occupying the constructed property, the owner has to seek an “Occupancy Certificate” [OC/NoC] from the MCC to ensure that the building is as per the approved plan and that there is no variation.  Necessary documents have to be provided at that time also to the MCC.

4. An OC or NoC is given for occupancy only after an inspection by the concerned MCC authority who ‘ensures the adherence’ to the approved plan.

5. After OC, it is the MCC which is the authority to issue a Khatha certificate to the building owner after providing necessary documents.

6. It is the MCC which approves the property tax based on the measurements of the area of the land and the constructed area where the necessary records and inspection by the MCC authority is involved.

7. Property tax is modified by the MCC based on the random inspection and verifications by its authority.

8. Such property tax establishes the ownership and property details by the MCC.

9. UPOR Certification: Apart from the MCC, in the recent past a government established authority has scientifically measured and established the ownership of the property in Mysuru city after getting necessary legal documents from its owner and has issued Urban Property Ownership Record [UPOR] for which the owners were made to pay certain fees.

That being the case, what is the logic in seeking afresh hard copies of ownership documents, property and its owner’s photos? Such illogical notification raises following questions:

1. Every property owner in Mysuru is aware of the fact that the MCC is under-staffed and is working with temporary staff. And even a simple annual property tax collection is done in a very haphazard manner causing a lot of harassment to property owners.

2. For reason not publicly known, MCC is unable to clear applications for issuing OC/NoC for new property and  there is a lot of suspicion of corruption in this matter.

3. Recently certain MUDA officials were suspected to have issued fake documents which exposed the lack of safety of ownership records at the hands of the concerned authority.

4. Therefore, with such a large number of temporary employees of the MCC and inefficiency aplenty, how safe will be the copies of original ownership records?

5. Above all, when all necessary  ownership records are / ought to be with the MCC, when the MCC is the issuing authority of Khatha, where is the need for the owners to once again provide certain legal documents?

6. Most of all, why is it that the UPOR records are NOT accepted by the MCC? And unnecessarily repeating the entire exercise, that too at the cost of the and risk of the owners?

The property owners in Mysuru are a very harassed lot and unnecessarily exposed to risks of misuse of their ownership records. Therefore, it is time to pressurise the government authorities concerned and the MCC to drop this step.

– R. Chandra Prakash, Gokulam, 30.12.2023

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