Is Your Bangalore Plot Really Approved? Authorities, Revenue Sites and Khata

A cheap plot on the outskirts of Bangalore tempts many first-time buyers, and the sales pitch usually mentions an approval. What matters is which office issued it. A document from the correct planning authority opens doors to bank finance, registration and construction, while one from the wrong office opens none of them. Below, the approval landscape is explained region by region, followed by a short routine for testing any plot.

Start With the Land, Not the Brochure

Every stretch of land belongs to the jurisdiction of exactly one planning authority, and that authority alone may sanction a layout under the master plan. Banks, registration offices and subsequent purchasers all ask for its sanction. Papers from any other office look reassuring but count for little.

Trouble rarely appears during the site visit. It turns up when the loan is refused, when the khata is graded poorly or when the next buyer asks for a discount. Identifying the sanctioning body at the outset avoids all three.

Who Is Responsible for What

The map of planning responsibility changed in 2025, and it differs from one corner of the region to another. These are the players:

• Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA): in charge of planning for the Greater Bengaluru area from September 2025 onwards.
• Five city corporations: these replaced the BBMP on 2 September 2025 and deal with plan approvals, property tax and khata for their wards.
• BDA: it forms layouts of its own, auctions sites and constructs flats, and approvals it granted earlier continue on record.
• BMRDA: planning in the wider metropolitan region, mainly delegated to local planning authorities such as those at Nelamangala, Hoskote and Anekal.
• BIAAPA: the planning body covering the zone around the airport.
• Gram panchayats: custodians of village property records and local taxes, with no power to sanction layouts.

Find the survey number first, then work out which body governs it. Only after that does a request for the approval paper make sense.

What Is a Revenue Site?

Farmland that is chopped into plots and sold with no layout sanction is called a revenue site. Brokers like to call it "panchayat approved", and the price is well below that of plots in a sanctioned layout in the same area. The document on offer could be real, but the office behind it never had authority to approve homes on that land.

Consequences come once the money is paid. Banks seldom lend against such plots, so the entire price usually comes from the buyer's own funds. Getting a plan sanctioned, obtaining a clean khata and selling later all turn awkward, and the site can attract action against unauthorised layouts.

Two companion checks

The layout sanction is not the only test. Wherever the law asks for it, farmland needs a conversion order to residential use. Housing must also be permitted in the zone the master plan assigns. A green belt or industrial zone plot stays problematic even if a khata exists.

A, B and e-Khata Explained

Property is linked to its taxpayer through the khata. City corporation areas now issue it electronically, as an e-khata via the state's e-Aasthi system, and a sale cannot be registered without it. For village areas, the e-Swathu system holds the records.

Properties on approved layouts with sanctioned plans receive an A-khata, whereas those without full approvals fall into B-khata, a category lenders and buyers distrust. Eligible properties were offered fee-based upgrades from B-khata to A-khata, first in a November 2025 drive and again from May 2026. Present conditions are best confirmed at the city corporation.

A tax record is not a title

An A-khata or a B-khata alike fails to prove who owns the property. Proof comes from the registered sale deeds across the history of the land. A lawyer should compare the khata with those deeds and with the approvals.

A Seven-Step Routine

An afternoon of paperwork can spare you years of dispute. Finish each step before any token changes hands:

1. Get the survey number and decide which authority has jurisdiction.
2. Obtain the layout plan that this authority sanctioned, with its release order.
3. Cross-check survey and plot numbers printed on the plan with the sale deed, then with the ground itself.
4. Verify any conversion order, together with the zone the master plan shows.
5. Look the property up for its e-khata and note whether the category is A or B.
6. Have the intended lender confirm that it will lend on this plot.
7. Pass the title, approval and encumbrance certificate to a property lawyer as one bundle.

Treat a lender's response as additional advice. Hesitation from a bank over the approval often signals the very flaw a later buyer would discover.

Peripheral Plots Done Right

Being far from the centre is not what makes a plot risky. Sanctioned layouts near Hoskote or Devanahalli may be perfectly sound when the correct planning authority granted the sanction. The danger is a revenue site presented in the vocabulary of an approved layout.

Apartment shoppers meet a simpler form of the question. Any project by a developer needs a building plan that has been sanctioned and a RERA registration, then an occupancy certificate at completion. Our team will review such papers for a plot or flat you are considering, and the first step is the contact page.