Ahead of the Assembly polls, the Maharashtra Cabinet on Tuesday cleared five subsidiary Acts to facilitate regularisation of lakhs of small housing units in satellite townships. By reducing the levy on land cost collected as regularisation fee from 75% to 25%, officials hope more violators will pay up and boost the State’s revenue.
The five Acts that were amended are the Bombay Paragana and Kulkarni Watans (Abolition) Act, 1950; the Bombay Service Inams (Useful to Community) Abolition Act, 1953; the Bombay Merged Territories Miscellaneous Alienations Abolition Act, 1955; the Bombay Inferior Village Watan Abolition Act, 1958; and the Maharashtra Revenue Patels (Abolition of offices) Act, 1962.
All the Acts play a supportive role to the Maharashtra Gunthewari Development (Regularisation, Upgradation and Control) Act, 2001, which apply to areas on the outskirts of a municipal corporation and city boundary limits. The Act was diluted in 2015, thereby doling out benefits to nearly 50 lakh small housing units. The amendments will apply retrospectively only to homes that have carried out illegal construction.
The Gunthewari had allowed owners to measure land in a traditional manner. However, it also promoted the practice of creating small plots of agriculture land in multiple ‘gunthas’. The size of the plots and homes — mostly less than 300 sq.ft — had made it easier for the owners to carry out illegal construction. An official said, “As long as the Act was there, it did not not allow further division of land, thereby promoting illegal extensions and constructions. The five Acts amended identify different classes of Gunthewari and will the pave way for their regularisation.”
The State government has been making several changes to Acts that govern land parcels in the rural and semi-urban areas since it came to power five years ago. It has already made changes to the Maharashtra Land Revenue (MLR) Code, 1966, and the Disposal of Government Land Rules, 1971, which deals with the removal, regularisation and fixation of the value of land and evictions. Under the provisions of the MLR, encroaching or trespassing on government land is deemed unauthorised occupation. The person occupying the land after expiry or termination of the lease or tenancy period is declared an unauthorised occupant.
