HYDERABAD: The market value of land for the purpose of calculating stamp duty and registration fee is set for a steep increase in almost all urban and rural areas of the State.

There will, however, be no change in the rate of duty and registration, which has been pegged at 9.5 per cent of the land value since July 1 last year. The rate is common to all land transactions in municipal corporation limits, selection and special grade municipalities and gram panchayats.

The Registration and Stamps Department has recently taken up a special revision of land values and submitted the proposals to the State Government for approval.

Additional revenue

The Commissioner and Inspector-General of the department, Lal Rosem, told The Hindu that the revision covers all districts, except Guntur and Adilabad where the survey has not yet been completed. The proposals, if approved, would fetch the Government additional revenue of Rs. 300 crores. Though the value of urban land was revised in July last and rural areas three months later, the special revision was taken up under the Andhra Pradesh Market Value Revision Rules, 1998, after huge differences were noticed between the Government rate and the actual market value.

Formula for revision

The recent merger of villages with municipalities or corporations and other factors such as escalation in rates due to construction of the international airport, roads and other projects were the other reasons for taking up the drive, Mr. Rosem added.

Explaining the formula for the revision, the Commissioner said one-third of the difference between the Government and open market rates was proposed to be added to the former to arrive at the new rate. For instance, in Jubilee Hills here, the basic price in the records is Rs. 15,000 per square yard and the open market price Rs. 56,000 per square yard. It is now proposed to fix the rate at Rs. 30,000 per square yard by applying the formula.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail