Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari said that the government is stepping in following a surge of grievances from those severely affected by steep and unreasonable land rates, particularly in urban areas.

To tackle these worries, the state plans to set up a high-level committee to re-examine land prices. Minister Pujari made it clear: if the committee finds the hikes unfair or spots major problems, the government is ready to roll them back. The main idea here is to balance the interests of landowners with what buyers can actually afford.

This benchmark value matters because it sets the floor price for stamp duty and registration fees when you buy or sell property. Usually, the government updates these values every two years. But with prices rising so fast, many lower and middle-income families are now locked out of the housing market in big cities, which is why the government is getting involved right now.

For the valuation itself, officials are using a "sales comparison approach." That means they look at recent sales of similar places, factoring in things like location, whether it's commercial, residential, or agricultural, and how the land is used. In cities, they're not just looking at the highest auction bid anymore-they're considering the average of all bids. Sub-Collector-led district committees have been told to submit detailed sales and field data so the review rests on real numbers.

To guide this, the Revenue Department has put out a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for carefully analyzing land data. Tehsildars and registering officers now have to provide thorough statistics for both rural and urban zones. With this move, the government is trying to make sure land prices reflect what's actually happening on the ground-without putting too much strain on regular people's wallets.