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The draft fair values of land in Kerala, notified on May 5, bring to the final stages a long and arduous journey the State government began several years ago.

Often muddled in controversies, the notification had been nowhere in sight for a long time.

The Extraordinary Gazette made the headlines, as it leads to the conclusion of another phase of modernisation of land deals and ushering in of transparency.

Copies of the draft, running into hundreds of pages for each village, are available for reference at the designated offices.

Section 28A of the Kerala Stamp Act, 1959, read with Rule 4 of the Kerala Stamp (Fixation of Fair Value of Land) Rules, 1995, has necessitated the fixing of fair value.

A Revenue Department official said make suggestions on the fair values or submitting complaints, if any, about them, for which the government had allowed two months’ time, would be in the larger interest of society.

The complaints can be submitted at the sub-registrar’s offices.

The final fair price notification is expected in July.

The stamp duty in the State, considered one of the highest in the country, will then come down. Registering a property at below the notified price will become impossible.

The land in the State has been divided into 15 categories. The prices for each of them have been fixed based on various factors based on the data collected at the villages. The most obvious of these is access to basic infrastructure.

The classifications are as follows: commercially important plot; residential plot with National Highway or Public Works Department (PWD) road access; residential plot with Corporation, municipality or panchayat road access; residential plot with private road access; residential plot without vehicular access; garden land with road access; garden land without road access; coastal belt; water-logged land; rocky land; wasteland (land in close proximity to dumping yards, graveyards and so on); wetland; hill tracks with road access; hill tracks without road access; and government land.

As the Revenue and the Registration departments relied on grassroots-level collection of data, the draft fair prices reflect the market situation despite differences of opinion that such a massive exercise automatically generate.

The notification says the most priced pieces of real estate in the State are on Kochi’s Mahatma Gandhi Road and Marine Drive, now witness to the building industry’s equivalent of the gold rush.

The fair price of a commercially important plot on Mahatma Gandhi Road has been put at Rs. 70 lakh an are (2.471 cents make up an are).

The price range is similar on Marine Drive (survey no. 843), where a commercially important plot has the price tag of Rs. 70 lakh an are. A plot with access to the National Highway or a PWD road has the price tag of Rs. 56 lakh an are. The notification considers the appreciating value of property in Kakkanad and Thrikkakara areas. A residential plot in Thrikkakara with access to a panchayat or municipal road has a price tag of Rs. 20 lakh an are. Similarly, the prices of residential plots in Kakkanad with access to panchayat or municipal roads vary between Rs. 16 lakh and Rs. 20 lakh an are.

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