Transaction value of properties in Bengaluru will go up from October 1 with the state government increasing the guidance value or the circle rates by 25%-30% on an average.
Plots near the national highways and in technology corridors such as electronic city, the jump in guidance value will be as high as 50%. The government has tried to align guidance value with the market value to the extent possible, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda told a media conference.
The government had not revised the guidance value for the past five years though the law mandates annual revision, the minister said. As a result, landowners and farmers have suffered injustice while selling their plots, the minister said. If anyone feels aggrieved by the revised rates, he or she could file objections before the government, he added.
The government will roll out the revised guidance value first in Bengaluru and later in districts in phases, the minister said.
Bengaluru accounts for a lion’s share of the state’s property market in terms of valuation. The government is hoping to mop up Rs 2000 crore in additional revenues from the revised rates.
The government had last changed the guidance value on January 1, 2019, and the government did not visit the subject later due to Covid-19 pandemic when property valuations plummeted in many places.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had, in his July budget, announced that there had been many changes in immovable properties in recent years that have led to anomalies in the guidance value of properties. The government would revise the guidance value to rectify the anomalies, Siddaramaiah had said, while fixing the revenue target for the stamps and registration department at Rs 25,000 crore for the year 2023-24.
Karnataka introduced the guidance value system in the 1990s to plug leaks in stamp duties through under-reporting of the value of transactions.
The government is tapping all possible revenue sources as the ruling Congress party’s five big-ticket election promises are estimated to cost about Rs 52,000 crore annually.
