Conversion of leasehold property to come at a price

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 24

The conversion of leasehold property into freehold in the city will come at a heavy cost.

In a move affecting the owners of nearly 50,000 leasehold properties, both residential and commercial, the UT, in its note sent to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), has proposed a land rate of Rs 1 lakh per sq metre against the old rate of Rs 1,710 per sq metre for calculating the conversion fee for sites measuring 50 sq metres to 500 sq metres.

Seeking that the case be taken up on priority, the UT has pointed out that a delay in taking a decision was creating legal complications for it.

Last time, the land rates for calculating the conversion fee had been fixed at Rs 1,710 per sq yard on the orders of the Ministry of Urban Affairs in June 1996.

Accordingly, the UT had farmed the “The Chandigarh Conversion of Residential Leasehold Land Tenure into Freehold Land Tenure Rules, 1996”.

The leasehold properties include 35,000 Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) flats, 2,000 commercial properties, 4,500 residential properties which come under the Estate Office and the CHB flats being constructed in Sector 63. This does not include 50 per cent of the total industrial plots in the Industrial Area, Phase I and II.

Earlier, former UT Administrator Shivraj V Patil, while turning down the proposal to convert leasehold residential and commercial properties into freehold, had asked the UT to send the case to the MHA.

A senior UT official said ever since the conversion had been put on hold in June 2013, there had been a rise in legal cases.

In the communication sent to the MHA, a reference to three court cases has been made in which the lessees had either moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court or the consumer court seeking relief for conversion.