Poor land valuation resulting in black money in Delhi: CIC

Difference in real value of land and circle rates in the national capital is not only facilitating black money inflow in the property market but also causing revenue loss to the exchequer, the Central Information Commission has said.
It has also directed the Chief Secretary to review the policy and carry out an inquiry.
Using its powers under the RTI Act, Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu directed the Chief Secretary to have "serious look" at the policy of circle rates and put them on the website.
Expressing concerns over impact of poor land valuation on the RTI Act, Acharyulu said, "The Commission finds in many cases before it that several public authorities are escaping accountability under RTI by showing value of the land given to them by the government as 'commercial value' which is an open lie as every one knows the real value would be thousand times more than what it was shown to be."

He said several hospitals, sports clubs, cricket associations are claiming that the land was given to them at commercial rate, simply because the state does not have any document to say that they have properly assessed the value of the land in a particular area.
"Because of this every selfish person or profit motivated corporate body is trying to take prime government land using the corruption as an easy tool and making huge profits at the cost of public exchequer and imposing burden on common consumers," he said in the order.
The observations of the Commission came on a plea of an activist S P Manchanda who had given detailed description to Delhi government on the loopholes in the process to determine rates of land in various circles resulting in revenue loss.

Acharyulu said all this is facilitated by the absence of "minimum governance" at the higher level where the powers that be prefer to relax and refuse to decide what is the value of the land.