What it costs to convert farmland to building land

01What the permission is for

Converts agricultural land to a non-agricultural use (residential, commercial, industrial, educational, charitable). Without it no building plan can be approved: the empowered officer may not grant construction approval without NA permission.

In plain terms: until this order exists, your field is legally a field. You can own it, you can farm it, you can sell it. You cannot get a building plan approved on it, because the officer who would approve the plan is not permitted to do so without the conversion order first.

02The three published numbers, and the four blanks

Converting farmland to building land is one of the most expensive things a landowner can do, and almost none of it has a published price.

The resolution that governs the whole procedure prints exactly one amount: a three rupee court fee stamp on the application form itself, which is filed in three copies. That is not a typographical error and it is not out of date in the sense of being wrong; it is what the resolution says.

What the resolution does not print is the conversion tax, the non-agricultural assessment, or the land measurement fee, even though it requires a challan for the last of those to be enclosed with the application. Nor does it print the premium payable where the land is new tenure, because that is fixed case by case by the Collector.

No official amount is published for the NA conversion tax, the non-agricultural assessment, the land measurement fee, or the new tenure premium. Each was checked against the document that would carry it. None has been estimated here, and no figure has been carried across from another district.

03The three month rule that works in your favour

STATUTORY: section 65 requires the Collector to inform the applicant of his decision within THREE MONTHS; where he fails to do so the permission applied for shall be DEEMED TO HAVE BEEN GRANTED. That three-month period runs from the date of the acknowledgment if a written acknowledgment is sent within seven days of receipt, otherwise from the date of receipt of the application. ADMINISTRATIVE (2008 resolution, para 6): maximum 30 days for NA permission for residential purpose statewide, and maximum 45 days for other purposes statewide - but the resolution expressly says these two are administr

That is unusually favourable to the applicant and it is worth knowing. If the Collector does not tell you his decision inside three months, the permission counts as granted. The clock starts from the written acknowledgment if one is sent within seven days, and otherwise from the day the application was received.

04Who decides, and it is not always the Collector

Empowered officer by area: (A) Collector - Mahanagar Palika, Urban Area Development Authority, Notified Area and Cantonment Area, and 'A' and 'B' category Nagarpalikas; (B) Territory Officer - 'C' and 'D' category Nagarpalikas; (C) Taluka Panchayat - up to 2 acres in villages with population under 5,000 per the last census; (D) District Panchayat - all other rural areas. Applied online through iORA.

For the villages of this region, which are rural and outside any municipal area, that means the Taluka Panchayat for holdings up to two acres in villages with fewer than five thousand people at the last census, and the District Panchayat for everything else. Sending the application to the wrong authority costs time rather than money, but it costs time.

Record GJ-NA-01. Source: Revenue Department GR NAP/1006/425/K dated 1-7-2008, English translation PDF, pages 1-5 (authorities table, application method, timelines) and pages 8-11 (Annexure-2 application form and Annexure-3 checklist); section 65 text from https://revenuedepartment.gujarat.gov.in/downloads/act_BLRC_1879_n.pdf page 47. Statutory basis: Section 65, Gujarat (Bombay) Land Revenue Code, 1879; Revenue Department Resolution No. NAP/1006/425/K dated 1 July 2008. Data class OFFICIAL. Last verified: 4 August 2026.