Bengaluru: Home buyers stage protest over elusive 'e-khathas'

BENGALURU: Flat owners of Provident Sunworth apartment in Kengeri a staged protest over the weekend, accusing the developers of not giving 'e-Khathas' for their units though three years have elapsed since they were handed over the possession.
The residents staged a protest on Saturday and Sunday in front of the developer’s marketing office on Mysuru Road, demanding e-khathas for their properties.
"There are more than 1,400 flats in the first phase of construction and most of them have been sold. The buyers are living with anxiety. We have invested our life time’s savings in buying these flats,” said a protestor, Basavaraj Patil, adding: “In the absence of e-Khathas, we can’t conduct any transactions with our property as our own very ownership is at stake.”
The developer, Puravanakar Housing Limited, said in a statement, “The issue of non-issuance of e-khathas pertain to the first set of customers who had registered their apartments in the very beginning and after we had obtained occupation certificates. The grama panchayat was making the necessary rectifications required for issuance of e-khatha and issued about 65 e-khathas when they suddenly stopped it for reasons best known to them. After all our efforts failed, we have moved the HC for directions to the gram panchayat for the issuance of remaining e-khathas.”
One of the residents, Sujith Deshapande, said that they had bought flats paying up to Rs 40 lakh per unit and but are yet to be issued e-khathas though they have been doing rounds of the jurisdictional H Gollahalli gram panchayat and their developer, Puravankara Housing Limited’s offices there has not been any progress in the matter.
The protestors said that they are ready to return their flats and take back their money if the e-khathas don’t come anytime soon.
“The matter has been heard once and is likely to come up again this week for orders. We are very positive this issue will be resolved in a short time. We are committed to resolve this as early as we can," the developer said.