Telangana might be among the top in the ‘Ease of doing business’ rankings, but it is not easy to obtain mutation certificates from the municipal authorities.
Mutations are expected to be done as part of the registration process with fees too being collected at the time of registration of immovable properties, but it is not happening due to lack of seamless integration of data between the municipal administration and the stamps and registration departments.
Property title transfers of 9,488 applicants are ‘under process’ in the 64 urban local bodies - other than Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) as on date whereas as per the Government rule, the municipal commissioners concerned should be issuing them within 15 days.
Ideally, when registrations take place, these are to get auto transferred to the urban local bodies title transfer module which in turn are to process and complete the certification by the municipal commissioner within the given time.
In recent times 31,027 applications were made across the State of which 15,726 mutations were pushed from the registration department till date and 4,727 were successfully mutated and 1,511 got rejected for various reasons.
Of the 9,488 applications ‘under process’, 4,495 have been kept pending because of non-payment of property tax dues and another half are shown ‘under process’ because the sub-register office concerned did not capture the property tax identity number, according to senior officials.
Khammam tops the list in having 1,063 pending mutation applications and other places where the numbers are high include Jagityal 500, Kamareddy 557, Karimnagar 508, Mahabubnagar 489, Nirmal 482, Palavancha 472 and so on.
While it is door number or the property tax identity number which is the most accepted identifiable number for a property for the municipal department, the registration department goes by the plot number or survey number which is a major stumbling block in integration of data and also for field verification.
Several meetings and numerous communications exchanged between the senior officials of the departments concerned about the need to ensure the property tax number is keyed into the document for better exchange of data thereby making it easier for the citizens to get their mutations done faster has not made headway.
With complaints pouring in from several quarters, Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration T.K. Sreedevi had directed the municipal commissioners concerned to ensure mutations are done speedily and within the time frame considering it as top priority under ‘Ease of doing business’ mode.
One way of resolving the issue could have been the registration department sharing the data of the properties on its records with the municipal department but this process too has not happened. When contacted, Ms. Sreedevi said discussions were on with the officials concerned of both departments to thrash out a solution to expedite the mutations process.
