Gujarat: How BJP govt has tweaked leasehold land norms to benefit cronies, saffron outfits
The new provisions essentially open up a massive chunk of leasehold govt land, collectively valued as per the revenue dept’s hitherto unrevised jantri rates at ₹1,256 crore
One of the principle reasons cited by the BJP-led Centre to justify the Waqf Amendment Act, passed by Parliament last month, was that Waqf Boards across the country weren’t optimally monetising land parcels under their jurisdiction. It may seem ironic then that in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, the ruling BJP has no problem with the state exchequer losing millions in revenue from land owned not by private or religious entities but the government itself.
Heavily-discounted rates
Last week, the Gujarat Revenue Department amended provisions governing leasehold government lands (bhada-patta ni jamin) as well as “wastelands” that fall under city survey areas. The new rules, to first be rolled out in Ahmedabad, Surat, and Bharuch districts, will allow current leaseholders to acquire permanent ownership of such lands at heavily-discounted rates offered on prevailing jantri rates.
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The jantri rate, last revised in Gujarat in 2013, is the rate of land fixed by the government. Even by conservative estimates, the prevailing market rate of land in Ahmedabad, Surat, and Bharuch is at least five times higher than the jantri rate. As such, the heavy concession on jantri rate that the government is offering means leaseholders will pay only a fraction – as per some estimates, between just 10 and 30 percent – of the market value of the land they can permanently acquire.
The beneficiaries
The expected beneficiaries? Industrialists, politicians, serving and retired bureaucrats and, last but not the least, a sizeable number of religious trusts and politico-religious bodies affiliated to the BJP and the wider Sangh Parivar.
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As per the new provisions, any leaseholder who currently possesses a lease, transferred legally, for any land parcel for more than 30 years can permanently acquire the said land from the government at a paltry 15 percent of the prevailing jantri rate. In case government land has been leased but not legally transferred to a lessee, the individual or entity could still seek permanent ownership by paying just 30 percent of the current jantri rate.
‘Illegally-transferred’ leases
That’s not all. The Bhupendra Patel government, which has justified the change in rules on the grounds that the new provisions would “streamline the process of lease renewal and permanent ownership transfer for both short and long-term leaseholders”, also has a bounty in store for those with leases that were “illegally transferred”.
As per the new provisions, in cases where the lease has been illegally transferred, the lessee can acquire permanent ownership by paying 25 per cent of the land’s jantri rate. Additionally, if the lessee belongs to a scheduled tribe, scheduled caste, or a backward caste, an additional concession of 20 per cent will be offered by the government.
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According to the notification of the state revenue department, “land valued up to ₹1 crore can be approved by the district collector” while “proposals for land worth more than ₹1 crore must be sent to the state government for final approval”. The applications must be made within two years and stamp duty based on the jantri rate will be collected from the buyer at the time of permanent allotment.
Land valued at ₹1,256 cr
The new provisions essentially open up a massive chunk of leasehold government land, collectively valued as per the revenue department’s hitherto unrevised jantri rates at ₹1,256 crore. Of this, land worth ₹980 crore is currently leased to various Hindu religious outfits and trusts, which can now seek permanent ownership of the land currently under their leasehold.
And it keeps getting better; just not for the exchequer. It isn’t just the massive concession being offered by the government that makes this jumbo land sale a steal for potential buyers. Sources in the revenue department claim that almost all leaseholders had been given their current land parcels at measly lease amounts to begin with.
‘Legalised land grab’
“Lease of 70,000 crore square metres have been awarded in the past primarily to Hindu social and religious trusts and to industrialists. They can now claim permanent ownership. Most of these plots were leased in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, and Gandhinagar over the years. The time period of these leases ranges from 20 years to 150 years and the price levied for leasing begins from anywhere between 20 paise per square metre to ₹1 per year irrespective of the size of the plot,” a revenue department official told The Federal on condition of anonymity.
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“With the new provision, most of the religious organisations and industrialists will want to take ownership of the land plots that are priced ridiculously low compared to the prevailing market rates. There are growing concerns amongst some officials that this is a case of legalised land grab,” added the official.
CAG report
Interestingly, a 2023-2024 report of the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) had pointed out that Gujarat’s land leasing system “was not in accordance with the existing provisions of the concerned Act(s), Rules and Regulations, etc.”
As per the report, “The amount of government land granted on lease in Ahmedabad exceeds the eligible limit in the district. This excess land measuring 17.57 lakh square metre, valued at ₹69.71 crore, is leased to religious institutions. In two cases, the transfer price of ₹2.03 crore was not levied in Surat. In districts Kutch, Bhavnagar, and Jamnagar, even grazing land was irregularly granted on lease for industrial purpose.”
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The report went on to state that of a total of 6,587 cases of government land being leased to religious institutions, as many as 4,682 leases had, in fact, “expired between 1933 and 2012 but no action was taken for their renewal or eviction of lessees from the leased land”.
Further, the report had pointed out that “542 leaseholders in five Collectorates were allowed to transfer government land ad-measuring 72,206.56 square metres in the name of purchaser or organisation."
BJP’s double standards
The BJP central leadership may have much to allege about “mismanagement” and “mafia-raj” in cases of land given away as religious endowments (waqf) by Muslims across the country, but it clearly has turned a Nelson’s Eye to the glaring irregularities in lease – and now soon-to-be permanent – allotments of the government’s own land to private citizens and sundry Hindu outfits.
As per the revenue department’s records, a majority of land parcels that the Gujarat government has leased out over the years in the premium real estate districts of Surat and Vadodara have been to Hindu religious bodies and right-wing organisations.
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“There are over 150 leaseholders in Vadodara; all primarily Hindu religious trusts… Many of these organisations have now applied for taking permanent ownership of their respective plots,” said the revenue department official quoted earlier.
Prime land for SJM
A case in point is the sprawling office that RSS-affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) has in Vadodara. “In 2012, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch put up a board at a government plot spread across 325 acres in the heart of the city. By 2015, a five-storey building came up on the plot,” city-based advocate Nisha Patel, who had filed a PIL in the Gujarat High Court against the leasing of land to the Manch, told The Federal.
“The Swadeshi Jagran Manch got a 99-year lease of the 325 acres of land at 30 paisa per acre. During the time, the market rate for the transfer of land for leasing in the area was ₹3,500 per square metre, which has now increased to ₹10,500 per square metre. The transfer cost of the land that the Swadeshi Jagran Manch leased in 2012 was around ₹46 crores but it paid just ₹1.30 lakh for the lease transfer (to the government),” alleges Patel, adding that ownership of the land was eventually transferred to the right-wing outfit in late 2019 but “there is no record of the rate charged by the government (for transferring permanent ownership).”
3,330 acres for RSS-affiliate
In another similar case that dates back to 2015, 2,450 acres of gauchar (grazing) land was leased out to another RSS-affiliate, the Dr Ambedkar Vanvasi Kalyan Trust by the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) for 99 years at an annual rate of ₹1. In 2019, the Trust acquired an additional 880 acres on lease from the SMC on the same price terms.
Krishnakant, a tribal rights activist who had challenged the SMC’s decision in the courts, told The Federal, “the standing committee of the SMC took a unanimous decision in 2015 in a meeting that lasted about three minutes to lease a huge plot of gauchar land to the Trust and the lease documents were formally handed over to Mohan Bhagwat (the present RSS chief) when he had visited the city in August that year.”
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“As per a Supreme Court order, gauchar land cannot be allotted to anyone without court orders but when I challenged the allotment to the Trust, the SMC argued that this plot was a waste land and was only being leased, not sold. From December 2015 to September 2016, there were only three hearings of the case and then in March 2017, my lawyer was just informed that the case file had gone missing,” Krishnakant claimed.
