Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda at a meeting in Bengaluru on Saturday. | Photo credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
In a major reform, the state government has introduced automatic conversion of land use in the notified master plan area in the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) area. Plan approval can now be applied for directly under the Master Plan and the conversion will be done automatically as part of the process. Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda on Saturday launched a new software to facilitate this.
“By enabling automatic conversion, GBA now has a legal framework to convert B-Khata to A-Khata properties,” said Mr. Byre Gowda, adding that this will help thousands of property owners who have purchased unauthorized sites in the past. Getting A Khatha will give such sites legal power, enable them to get loans, increase the value of their assets, facilitate transactions and approvals.
GBA is now launching a one-time scheme of issuing A-Khata to B-Khata properties if the site owner pays 5% of the guideline value. Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister DK Shivakumar recently said that GBA has received 1.2 lakh applications of which 45,000 have been rejected.
Decrease in discretion
Earlier, even lands falling within the master plan required separate conversion, despite the concept of ‘deemed conversion’. The process usually took 4 to 6 months and often led to delays, harassment, corruption and increased costs due to middlemen, Mr. Byre Gowda himself admitted.
“Automatic land conversion is meant to help legal, faster and easier land development. So help common people to buy affordable land. Ease of administration and compliance to reduce the cost and time of land development. This will not only benefit residential development but also available for industrial and other uses as permitted in the master plan. With this reform, the revenue department itself hopes that it will banish bad governance and corruption.
“Discretion is reduced by bringing online transparent time-bound and automated processes. All these steps along with E-Khata and integration of various records will reduce litigation and bring greater assurance of property ownership,” he further said.
Published – 07 Feb 2026 21:58 IST