Guntha, Acre and Sq Ft: Land Measurement in Maharashtra

One guntha is 1,089 sq ft, which is 121 sq yards or about 101.17 sq m. Forty guntha make one acre. One acre is 43,560 sq ft, or about 4,046.86 sq m. One hectare is about 2.47 acres.

These are fixed conversions, not local conventions, and they hold across Maharashtra as well as Karnataka and parts of Andhra Pradesh where the guntha is also used.

A useful anchor: a 10,000 sq ft plot is about 9.2 guntha, and a one-acre plot is a little over four times that.

Revenue records — the 7/12 extract, the NA order, the sale deed — describe land in guntha, acres or hectares, because that is the unit the land administration uses.

Buyers, however, price land in rupees per square foot, and construction is planned in square feet. So a plotted development will typically advertise both: the sq ft figure for pricing, and the guntha figure that matches the revenue record.

When the two do not reconcile, that discrepancy is worth resolving before purchase rather than after.

A plot's recorded area is not always its usable area. Internal roads, setbacks required by the layout sanction, and any portion reserved for common amenities reduce what can actually be built on.

A 10,000 sq ft plot marketed as approximately 9,000 sq ft usable is describing exactly this gap. Ask which figure a quoted price is calculated against, since a per-sq-ft rate on recorded area and the same rate on usable area are not the same offer.

Converting the sizes that actually appear in listings: 5 guntha is 5,445 sq ft. 10 guntha is 10,890 sq ft, or about a quarter acre. 20 guntha is 21,780 sq ft, half an acre. 40 guntha is 43,560 sq ft, one full acre.

Working the other way, a 5,000 sq ft plot is about 4.6 guntha, a 10,000 sq ft plot about 9.2 guntha, and a 20,000 sq ft plot about 18.4 guntha.

Note that revenue records often express area in hectares and are rounded — an entry of 0.10 hectare corresponds to roughly 10,764 sq ft, or just under 10 guntha. Where the record and the marketing figure differ slightly, the record governs, and a material difference is worth resolving with a surveyor before purchase.

Stamp duty is calculated on the agreement value or the ready reckoner value, whichever is higher, and ready reckoner rates are notified against area. An error in the recorded area therefore affects the tax as well as the deal.

This is a practical reason to reconcile the sq ft figure in the sale documentation against the guntha or hectare figure in the revenue record before registration rather than after it.