This is where buyers get hurt more often than anywhere else in a Maharashtra land purchase. Agricultural land is cheaper than residential land for a reason: you cannot do with it what you can do with residential land. A 7/12 with a clean name on it, and a seller who says the plot is "as good as NA", are not the same thing as permission to build a house.
The short answer
Yes, but only within narrow, specific provisions, and not in the way most people mean when they ask.
If the sanctioned Development Plan or Regional Plan shows your parcel in the Agricultural Zone, the permitted uses are those listed in Regulation 4.11 of the Unified Development Control and Promotion Regulations. The list is long, but its residential entries are small and heavily conditioned. It is not a route to a plotted housing layout.
Buying the land and being able to build on it are two different transactions
Being registered as the holder of a parcel tells you nothing about what may be constructed on it. Ownership is a revenue and title question; development is a planning question, decided by a different authority under a different Act. Three separate gates sit between you and a house.
- Are you eligible to take the transfer at all? Maharashtra restricts who may purchase agricultural land, and the restriction is genuine. It is the thing a first-time buyer from outside the state has most often never heard of. Those rules sit in tenancy and ceiling legislation rather than in the planning regulations, and they have been amended repeatedly. Ask your advocate to confirm in writing, against the current text, whether you are eligible to take a transfer of this specific parcel.
- Does the tenure permit the transfer? A 7/12 showing Occupancy Class II carries restrictions, and a sale usually needs the Collector's permission. Class I is broadly unrestricted.
- Does the zone permit the building? That is the zone certificate's job, independent of the first two.
Clearing the first two gates and failing the third leaves you owning a field.
What the Agricultural Zone actually permits
Regulation 4.11 permits agricultural uses including stables, piggeries and poultry farms; golf courses and nature trails; gardens, nurseries and play fields; public and semi-public utility establishments; fuel filling stations on conditions; pottery, brick and tile manufacture; fish farming; solid waste management; religious buildings; cemeteries; mangal karyalayas; amusement parks on a minimum of 1.0 ha; film studios on a minimum of 2.0 ha; and a wide tourism list covering resorts, hotels, camping and eco-tourism projects.
Note 1 to Regulation 4.11 sets the default FSI for these uses at 0.20 where not otherwise specified. Note 3 sets a minimum road width of 6.0 m for non-special buildings.
Read that list again. It is a schedule of rural, recreational and utility activity. Housing appears twice, in two tightly bounded provisions.
The farm house provision
Under Regulation 4.11(ix), a farm house may be permitted subject to conditions:
- Minimum plot area of 0.4 hectare.
- One farm house per land holding, irrespective of the size of the holding.
- FSI not exceeding 0.04, subject to a maximum built-up area of 400 sq.m. in any case.
- Ground plus one floor only, with height not exceeding 9.0 m.
Those conditions kill most of what gets marketed as a "farmhouse plot". One house per holding means a holding cannot be sliced into ten plots and still produce ten farm houses. The 0.4 ha floor rules out small parcels. The FSI and the 400 sq.m. ceiling cap the building whatever the size of the land.
A second, smaller provision sits at Regulation 4.11(xxxvi): an individual house of up to 150 sq.m. for the entire holding mentioned in a single 7/12 extract, as on the date the regulations came into force. Again, per holding, not per buyer.
Land near a village settlement
One route lets land in a Regional Plan area carry residential development rights without being drawn as a residential zone. Regulation 5.1.1 provides that in Regional Plan areas, for villages where no specific residential zone is shown, development permissible in a residential zone may be allowed within defined belts measured from gaothan and municipal limits. Sub-clause (vi) sets that distance at 500 m for villages in the Regional Plan of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Raigad.
It comes with a price. The regulation requires a premium on the total area of land, calculated at 15% of the land rate in the Annual Statement of Rates for the year permission is granted, subject to government orders from time to time. For areas converted into municipal councils or nagar panchayats within the Regional Plan, that premium is 5% instead. No premium applies to an individual house of an owner, or a farm house on the owner's own land. Where more than half a survey or gat number falls within the belt, the remainder in the same ownership is considered on the same terms.
What changed with the 2025 NA reform
The Maharashtra Land Revenue Code (Second Amendment) Act, 2025 was notified on 31 December 2025, operationalised by a Revenue and Forest Department Government Resolution dated 10 February 2026.
| Before the amendment | After, as reported | |
|---|---|---|
| Route to non-agricultural use | Separate NA order and NA Sanad | Dispensed with where the use matches the DP or RP; the planning authority permits directly |
| Recurring charge | NA assessment and conversion tax | Abolished |
| One-time charge | None | Conversion premium of 0.10% to 0.50% of ASR value, banded by plot size, payable before permission issues |
| Statutory provisions | Section 42 permission; sections 42A to 42D, 44 to 46, 47A | Section 42 requirement removed where use matches the plan; those sections deleted; premium in a recast section 47 |
| Record update | Sanad, then mutation | On permission and payment, via BPMS or AutoDCR to the digital 7/12; manual notice to the Tahsildar where integration lags |
| Tenure | Class-II restrictions and NOCs apply | Unchanged |
Past conversions may be regularised within one year using ASR values of the original conversion year.
Two warnings. First, all of this comes from legal commentary rather than from a Gazette notification or a .gov.in page. The Act's Gazette citation, the GR number and the premium slab table could not be verified. Get the GR before relying on any of it. Second, and more important:
The 2025 reform removed a revenue department step. It did not change a single land use zone. If the plan shows your parcel as agricultural, it is still agricultural, and no NA receipt makes it a housing plot.
The earlier position still governs older plots. GR NAP-2023/Pra.Kra.64/J-1A dated 13 March 2024 had already provided that no separate NA permission was needed where the use was permitted under the DP or RP, the Sanad being issued after construction permission.
Where buyers get hurt
- Paying agricultural-land prices in the belief that conversion is a formality, when the zone does not permit the intended use at all.
- Being shown a "farmhouse layout" of many small plots, when Regulation 4.11(ix) allows one farm house per holding on a minimum of 0.4 ha.
- Accepting the word "NA" without asking which regime it comes from. A plot marketed as NA may hold an old NA order plus a Sanad, or new-regime planning permission plus a premium receipt. Ask which, and ask to see it.
- Missing an Occupancy Class II entry on the 7/12.
- Assuming a No Development Zone is a temporary label. Under Regulation 4.2(VIII), NDZ is equivalent to Agricultural Zone.
- Relying on UDCPR where it does not apply. Regulation 1.1(i) excludes the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai and planning bodies within it, MIDC, NAINA, the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust area, Hill Station Municipal Councils, the Chikhaldara notified area, eco-sensitive and eco-fragile regions notified by MoEF&CC, and Lonavala Municipal Council. The text cited here is current to 30 January 2025.
What to ask for before you pay
- A zone certificate for the exact survey or gat number, showing the zone and any reservation.
- The tenure class on the 7/12, and the Collector's order if it is Class II.
- Written confirmation from your advocate that you are eligible to take a transfer of agricultural land.
- If the land is described as NA: the NA order and Sanad, or the planning permission and premium receipt under the new regime.
- If a farm house is proposed: the holding area, and confirmation that no farm house has already been permitted on that holding.
- If the plot is near a gaothan: which belt under Regulation 5.1.1 it falls in, and the premium computation.
- The GR of 10 February 2026, if any part of the transaction depends on the new NA regime.