Raising circle rates will curb blackmoney in land deals: CM

Justifying the decision to raise the circle rates of agriculture land, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said that it will help the government curb blackmoney in land deals. The ongoing tussle between Lt Governor Najeeb Jung and the Delhi government yesterday intensified further when the latter refused to accept Jung's stay on its order hiking circle rates for agricultural land. "Due to government's notification, people, who were involved in agriculture land fraud and buying the land through black money, are now losing in their business," Kejriwal said here.

He also said that there was a huge difference between market and circle rates on agriculture land in Delhi, but after this notification, their circle rate is now equivalent to market rate. "Before the notification, there was huge difference between market rate and circle rate. "For instance, market rate was Rs 4 crore per acre, but circle rate was just Rs 53 lakh for agriculture land.

With this, we have now equalled circle rate to market rate due to which the fraud in land deal has stopped," the CM said. Yesterday, Delhi Cabinet passed a resolution against the LG's stay on increasing circle rates on agriculture land and asked officials not to follow the Lt Governor's order. Later, Jung returned the file on the matter citing "inherent inconsistencies" and sought a fresh notification.