Form 9, Form 11A and Form 11B on E-Swathu: A Buyer's Guide to Panchayat Property Papers

A plot in a village beyond Bangalore's limits comes with different paperwork from a flat inside the city. The record is an e-Swathu form numbered 9, 11A or 11B, not a city khata. What follows explains the three forms, compares the system with the urban e-Aasthi portal, summarises the 2025 amendments and closes with seven questions for the seller.

First, Find Out Who Governs the Land

The local body decides the system, and the system decides the document. Two cases cover almost everything near Bangalore.

• Village land under a gram panchayat is recorded on e-Swathu, a service of the state's rural development and panchayat department, and the papers are Forms 9, 11A and 11B.
• Land under a city corporation, a municipal council or a town panchayat is recorded through e-Aasthi as a khata, which in the city is issued digitally as an e-khata.

Flats and houses in the Greater Bengaluru Authority area belong to the second case, while layouts and villas in outlying villages tend to belong to the first. Panchayat land is still common around Hoskote, Anekal, Sarjapur and Devanahalli. If a seller hands over the wrong kind of paper for the location, ask why.

What Goes Into E-Swathu

The register covers built property and sites that are not farmland: house plots, houses, layouts and similar buildings. Entries are created by the village panchayat and carry the digital signature of its Panchayat Development Officer.

Farm land is not part of it. An agricultural plot is shown as an RTC on the Bhoomi portal of the Revenue Department, and enters e-Swathu only after conversion and subdivision into sites. When a seller offers an RTC as proof of a "site", the panchayat has not yet recognised it as one.

Three Forms, Three Different Stories

Although the printouts resemble each other, the legal position behind each is not the same. The form number is the fastest way to judge a panchayat property.

Form 9

This is the panchayat's register extract for a property that qualifies. It names the owner and gives the property and survey numbers, size and use. A panchayat may issue it in three cases:

• The plot is part of the original village core (gramathana) and a Tahsildar-certified sketch backs it
• The site forms part of a layout the planning authority has cleared, on land converted from farm use
• The site or house came through an allotment under a government housing scheme, and the papers prove it

Form 11A

Here the panchayat extracts the register of tax demanded, collected and outstanding for the same property, year by year. Form 9 and Form 11A are issued as a pair, and a panchayat property holding both is what sellers casually call an "A khata".

Form 11B

A building or empty site that fails the Form 9 test ends up here. Examples are land that was never converted, layouts the planning authority has not cleared and structures built in breach of the rules. The panchayat taxes it through a register of its own. Sellers describe it as a "B khata".

Law Changes From 2025

The Karnataka legislature passed an amendment in 2025 that inserted Sections 199B and 199C into the Panchayat Raj Act of 1993. Both bear directly on site buyers in villages.

Section 199B restricts new entries. Before opening a fresh khata or property number for a building site, a panchayat needs the layout plan cleared by the planning authority. If the village lies outside every local planning area, the Director of Town and Country Planning, or an officer that Director authorises, gives that clearance. An official who grants a khata to an unlawful plot risks a penalty.

Section 199C addresses properties that already stand without approvals. The panchayat may charge tax on them at twice the usual rate for a year and at the normal rate after. Buyers should remember three limits:

• Anything created after the section began operating in 2025 is shut out of the register.
• Government land, forest land and statutory-body land are left out.
• Paying gives no claim to regularisation, title, ownership or legal status, and legal action stays possible.

December 2025 brought e-Swathu 2.0, a fresh portal issuing Forms 11A and 11B digitally as e-khata documents. Officials expect roughly 95 lakh rural properties to enter the tax net, and a Form 11B account should now be issued in 15 days instead of 45.

Weighing the Evidence

Form 9 together with Form 11A tells a buyer that the panchayat regards the holding as lawful and charges tax to the person named. That is a strong start. Registered deeds, however, are what establish ownership, since the panchayat's record follows them.

Form 11B offers little by comparison. It puts the property on the tax rolls and nothing more, and the 2025 law spells out that the tax creates no title or legal status. Banks normally want both extracts plus the land conversion order and a sanctioned layout plan, so a loan against a Form 11B property is hard to obtain and resale takes longer.

When a Panchayat Becomes Part of the City

A village that joins a corporation or municipality leaves the panchayat register for urban khata records. For a while the owner may have an e-Swathu form but no urban khata. Ask which authority now holds the land and whether the new khata has been issued.

Bangalore's corporations register no sale deed without a final e-khata. For land now inside the city, a panchayat form is old paperwork, and the e-khata should be in hand before the sale.

Seven Questions for the Seller

These apply to any plot, villa or house sold with panchayat papers near Bangalore:

1. Which village and local body is the property in, and does the paper come from that body?
2. Is the document Form 9 with Form 11A, or Form 11B?
3. Does the portal show the same document number, owner, survey number and size as the papers?
4. Can the seller show the conversion order and the planning authority's approved layout plan, with this site number on it?
5. Do registered deeds and an encumbrance certificate covering the whole period, read by a lawyer, support the title?
6. Has property tax on Form 11A been paid up to date?
7. Would a bank lend on it, asked before any advance is paid?

Plot and villa projects with a Karnataka RERA registration have already filed their conversion and layout approvals. Look the registration number up on the state's portal next to the panchayat papers.