The Calcutta Municipal Corporation has decided to provide mutation certificates to over two lakh flat owners living in colonies that had been set up to rehabilitate refugees from the erstwhile East Pakistan.

The certificate will provide residents a legal document of ownership and help the corporation earn more revenue.

“A resolution has been passed for the mutation of houses on colony land. The civic assessment department will organise mutation camps at the colonies, starting with the Bijoygarh colony, from the second week of July,” said Debabrata Majumdar, mayoral council member (revenue and assessment).

Many residents of the colonies do not have any legal document identifying them as the owners of their homes though many have been living here since the Partition, said a source.

Also, on many of these plots, highrises have been constructed — without the civic body sanctioning any building plan — though they are still “thatched houses” or “one-room house with a tin shed” in the civic records.

The annual house tax of such modest dwellings is hardly Rs 16 per quarter even today. Recognising them legally would open an avenue of funds for the corporation.

The source said the cash-starved CMC is losing out Rs 150 crore a year by keeping the colonies outside the purview of partition.

“The state government’s refugee rehabilitation department had distributed about 1,50,000 cottahs among the refugees,” said a civic official. “We have found that about two lakh flats now exist on the distributed land. About 10 lakh people live in these flats.”

Residents who arrived later also face problems. “We do not have the land pattas. Though we spent a lot to buy the flats, we have no document to prove ownership,” said the resident of a multi-storeyed building in Bijoygarh.

“We will issue mutation certificates after seeing the pattas. Those living in a flat built on that land will also be given certificates,” Majumdar said.

Residents without pattas will need to provide their enumerated plot number or squatter plot number issued by the refugee rehabilitation department to get their flats mutated. “They would be liable to pay tax,” said Majumdar.

Those having neither of the above will have to produce voter ID cards, PAN cards or BSNL landline bills.