No need of mutation certificate while selling property after digital survey

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Revenue Department has issued guidelines regarding crucial changes related to land transfer and tax payment, which will take effect after the ongoing digital survey.

For instance, applications for selling and purchasing land should be mandatorily submitted through the ‘Ente Bhoomi’ portal in villages where the survey has been completed. Similarly, the mutation of property (‘pokkuvaravu’ or the process of transferring the land title) will occur from the seller to the buyer along with the land transaction. Moreover, a plot could be sold only if it has a ‘pre-mutation sketch.’

A benefit of the new arrangement is that a separate application for mutation need not be submitted in village offices as the difference in the area of the plots would be recorded in the survey sketch prepared during its transaction. Moreover, details of the ‘thandaper’ (unique identification number of individual plots) would be recorded on the survey sketch.

Land tax
Land tax would be collected based on the digital basic tax register (D-BTR) in villages where the digital survey has been completed. As a prelude to introducing this system, the tax receipt would be issued after the village officer conducts a one-time scrutiny of the records when the application is submitted through the ‘Ente Bhoomi’ portal (ILIMS – Integrated Land Information Management System).

The tax receipts issued online would include old and new survey or resurvey numbers, making it convenient for landowners, banks and other financial institutions to verify the details.

Owners could pay the land tax based on the area mentioned in the digital survey. Any complaints related to the survey records could be registered online on Digital Land Records Management (D-LRM).

The digital survey has been completed on a pilot basis in one village in Kasaragod district. Revenue officials said a notification would be issued when the project covers 150 villages.

Three colour codes
When owners submit an application for selling land, they can learn about the complaints related to the plot by checking the three colour codes on the survey sketch.

‘Green’ colour code on the sketch indicates that there are complaints on spelling errors related to the name and address of the owner on D-BTR and D-Thandaper registers. The village officer could rectify such errors.

A ‘yellow’ colour on the sketch suggests that the plot has complaints regarding ownership or area.

Meanwhile, a plot with a ‘red’ colour would have complaints over the boundaries it shares with government land. 

The pre-mutation sketch of plots with ‘yellow’ and ‘red’ colour codes would be watermarked that there could be changes as complaints exist.