mumbai achintya joshi a kala nagar housing society resident in bandra will have to pay as big as rs 27 lakh premium and so the other flat owner members in his society to help convert their collectorowned land that was leased to their society 50 years ago at a very concessional rate into a freehold or ownership title the weakened building structures in the society are to be redeveloped on an urgent basis says joshi and such a permission can come only after paying hefty premium of 15 of the ready reckoner rr rates another society in chembur where joshis friend arup sovani lives the premium per flat would be around 25 approx rs 45 lakh as instead of chs holding the lease initially it was given to a few residents 50 years agonot just joshi and arup alone over 8 lakh families living in buildings on around 8000 collector lands in mumbai metro region either under occupancy clause where residents or a society are just the occupants of the revenue departments land or under the leasehold clause wherein the owner of the lands is collector and are given to societies or residents on lease are badly affected such societies if need to be redeveloped have to own the land to attract builders and strike with them the viable or affordable deals for which occupancy or leaseholds need to be converted into freehold ie ownership explains vikramaditya dhamdhere general secretary of federation of grantees of government landshowever to do this government charges 15 to 25 premium of the existing ready reckoner rates which are on the higher side in mumbai and this all has to be done within a years time as these premium rates will go up almost over three times after the period for existing rates expires in march 2024 dhamdhere said majority societies fall in 15 bracket and the same premium rate for collector lands in nagpur have been at 5 which is discriminatory against people across mumbai region if same 5 rate is offered almost all societies in the metro region will respond quickly to help state earn huge revenue upto rs 810000 crore this will not only help bring in more real estate investments but also save lives of many whose building structures are in precarious condition he said meanwhile additional chief secretary revenue department nitin kareer said even without a freehold societies can go for redevelopment and can sell their flats by paying minimal fees to the government only thing is they have to take collector permissions and considering concessional rates at which lands were given then 15 of the rr value today for their ownership is not much as against todays market rates he addedadding fuel to the fire state government recently introduced new conditions for conversion of collectors land to freehold land residents allege that the new conditions in the latest gazette notification have been imposed without inviting objectionssuggestions from the public the notification states that societies that were allotted