E-khata woes persist amongst property owners

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Despite measures taken by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to streamline procurement of an eKhata by increasing manpower at Assistant Revenue Offices (AROs) and Bangalore One centres, citizens continue to bear the brunt with the process riddled with errors, be it with the right documents or the servers. The digitisation of property records was taken up on Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister D K Shivakumar’s orders and began in 2023. The BBMP had digitised and uploaded 22 lakh property records in October 2024. The eKhatas are available on the following portal: www. bbmpeAsthi.karnataka. gov.in. The requirement of an eKhata is mandated to register and sell properties in the city.

On top of this, the BBMP needs to deal with the 5-7 lakh properties which do not have a ‘A’ or ‘B’ eKhata resulting in losses as they are out of the property tax net. A new portal for the new eKhatas has also been launched. However, the BBMP’s plans of starting new facilities on the lines of passport offices remains only on paper.

Reports have emerged claiming that the BBMP has received applications from two or three owners laying claim to the same property with the same survey number. This has created a big headache for revenue officials who clear these eKhatas. Reports suggest that the Palike has received around 47,000 applications for an final eKhata, of which 39,000 are approved and cleared.