Making land records available Online and linking Aadhaar number to these land records is now the two major exercise underway across various State governments in the country. States like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana are among some of the states whose land revenue departments are in an overdrive to turn digital.
The newly formed government in the state of Uttar Pradesh is expected to take a decision in this regard shortly. The state's revenue department has already firmed up a proposal to this effect whereby it may become mandatory for the land-owners to furnish their Aadhaar numbers and get it duly verified. New owners will have to furnish the same at the time of property registration, state government insiders say. A similar exercise is also underway in Maharashtra where talks are on with the National Informatics Centre to link the land records, property ownership with the Aadhaar number of the owner.
Elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh, the NOIDA administration has already converted the physical records in to digital records of over 16,000 institutional, industrial and commercial properties. Now both Noida and Greater Noida administrations are undertaking a project to provide all land/property related certificates/documents/papers/etc which will be digitally readable and verifiable. This means, all such details generated online will come with barcodes/unique identifying marks that are machine readable. The aim is to curb all fraudulent activities and remove middlemen. Also, such machine readable documents will be authentic as they will be easily identifiable.
As part of its push to affordable housing under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), the central government has already made provisions for online submissions of applications. This scheme is now being extended to all affordable housing based projects - either by centre or states. The implementing authority for the PMAY-U project is Common Services Centre e-Governance Services India Limited, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. In States like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, most of the affordable housing projects under the state government's ambit are already accepting online applications and online payments. With the help of Common Services Centre e-Governance Services India, consumers residing in States like West Bengal, Kerala, Manipur, Jharkhand and Punjab are also getting the options for applying online.
Last week, the Haryana government called for the property registration system to be simplified so that people do not have to visit government offices. The Haryana government has also launched the 'e-Bhoomi' portal. It is a land-purchase website for government projects developed by HSIIDC, the state's industry body. The portal is expected to handle sale of land to the government. It will be beneficial for the state government to maintain a digital record of the land bank going forward. The Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar said that 'e-Bhoomi' is a transparent mechanism. "It would prevent distress sale of land by the farmers as the government would be their potential partner. Land owners will also get an opportunity to participate in the decision-making process," he had said.
Meanwhile, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) is already one step ahead of the rest. It is now working on launching its own mobile application to help people pay property tax and link their records online. Since last year, SDMC has also been distributing unique property identification code cards to those who have been e-filing their property taxes. So far, around 3.5 lakh such ID codes have been allocated.
BW Reporters
Ashish Sinha is an experienced business journalist who has covered FMCG, auto, infrastructure, tourism, telecom among several other beats. Ashish has keen interest in the regulatory scenario impacting different sectors. He writes on aviation, railways, post and telegraph, infrastructure, defence, media & entertainment, among a wide variety of other subjects.
