The civic body owns 551 hectares of land in the city with a total of 4,551 leased plots for various purposes. Of these, 107 properties are in the process of transferring the land.

The proposal, if passed, would earn the civic body revenue of around Rs 280 crore and more in future.

Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak said that the BMC, despite being the superior owner, does not get a fair share of the profit as most of it is pocketed by the lesee. “The civic body should get the profit, but it gains a very meagre amount. The lesee tends to sell the prime plots to developers with huge margin of profits. If we are the owners of the land, why should the lesee get rich,” he said while addressing a press conference on Friday.

The civic body had last revised the rate of transfer fees in 1993 from five per cent to seven per cent. In July last year the BMC had proposed revising the rates by adopting the State government's policy of transferring the leased plot at the rate of 50 per cent of the unearned income as per the ready reckoner rate. The proposal was approved in the Improvement Committee meeting last year and was tabled before the General Body on Thursday.

While the Congress supported the proposal, BJP opposed it. BJP leader Ashish Shellar said that revising the transfer fee will result in additional burden to the common man as the developer will pass on the price to the buyers.

However, Additional Municipal Commissioner Manu Kumar Shrivastava refuted these claims. “The BMC is demanding money from the lesee and not from the developer. So, there shouldn’t be any fear of property prices going high,” he said. He also added that once the revision of rates comes into effect, the BMC’s income will increase tremendously.