The Uttarakhand cabinet approved the finance department’s proposal to raise the circle rates across the state, barring a few areas.
While the circle rates are revised annually, the process was held for the past two years due to Covid-19. In 2023, the rates were revised for 57,000 areas across Uttarakhand. Across the total identified areas, the circle rate was increased by less than 50% in the majority of the areas.
While the rate increase was in the range of 51% to 100% in 5,900 areas, around 2,850 areas witnessed a rise of 100%. Uttarakhand chief secretary S S Sandhu said, “It is a long exercise which involves several rounds of meetings. The district magistrate goes through the updates and after looking into various aspects such as registries and circle rates, he takes a call. They also visit websites involved in the purchase and sale of land to get updated rates.”
He stated that a committee headed by the chief secretary was formed to investigate any issue raised in the state. “The committee after going through the matter would forward the details to the chief minister and the required changes would be made,” he said.
Sandhu also pointed out that the start of major projects often raised the land prices in the respective areas. However, the circle rates remained stagnant or went down in some areas. “We got several suggestions at the district level, and we held some state-level meetings to look into the matter,” he added.