Property ownership among women go up after goverment waives off registration fee

RANCHI : Gomti Devi, 35, did not just buy a land in her name but also became the proud owner of a business as she managed to save money on registration of the land after the state government launched Re 1 registration scheme for women.



In June 2017, the state government decided to waive off the registration and court fees on properties registered in the name of women. Jharkhand is the only state in the country to waive off the entire 7% fees for registration of property in a woman's name.

"I bought four decimal land in Hutu, Ormanjhi, at Rs 1.76 lakh per decimal. My budget was around 9 lakh and had there been a registration fee, the entire amount would have been spent. However, I ended up paying only Rs 8.5 lakh and saved Rs 50,000 on court and stamp fees," Devi said. She used the money saved to open a poultry farm and now is earning a fair profit out of it.

For registration of a property, one needs to pay an additional 7% of the entire property cost, of which 4% is stamp duty and 3% is court fee. But as the fees are waived, the number of property being registered in the name of women, which was 40,000 in financial year 2015-16, has gone up to 1.06 lakh from June 2017 till September 2018, thus becoming more than double in three years.

"Other states give a concession of one or two per cent on registration of property in women's name but we are the first state to waive off the entire fee. This has lead to a huge surge in property registration by women, thus giving them ownership," said IG (registration) A Muthukumar.

Muthu kumar further said there have been many cases where women bought property and used them to start businesses, thus making them financially independent.

However, waiving off the registration fees has led to losses for the revenue, registration and land reforms department. The revenue collected from land registration in 2013-14 was Rs 509.89 crore and it reduced to Rs 465.09 crore in the 2017-18 financial year. This loss has led the department to reduce the target revenue collection for financial year 2018-19 from Rs 900 crore to Rs 700 crore.

"There has been a loss of revenue but the government is not a profit making machinery as it is for the welfare of its people. We are giving ownership of property to women, thus making them economically strong and helping them in their empowerment," Muthukumar said.