Chandigarh set to become India’s first city to have Aadhaar based land titling system

The country is finally making some headway in resolving the vexed issue of absence of clear land titles, something that has precipitated a mass of litigation and impediments to industrial growth. According to sources, Chandigarh will soon be the country’s first city to have a conclusive land titling system (CLTS), enabled by Aadhaar authentication. Under the project initiated by Department of Land Resources under the ministry of rural development, all residents in the Union territory will be provided with CLTS guaranteed by the state by June this year.

A host of states including Maharastra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Gujarat have also commenced the process for putting CLTS in place, while several others have shown interest in being part of the national project.

The idea is to ensure that once a land is registered against a person, she will get CLTS within 15 days, leaving no scope for ownership dispute. The tehsildar or a designated officer will issue the CLTS certificate online.

The certificate will a display unique land parcel ID apart from mandatory details like site address, name of owner, authorised signatory and name, Aadhaar number and a GIS-enabled map of the property. In case of joint ownership, the shares of each owner will be mentioned. The digital certificates will also have a provision to show the mortgage- or loan-related information, which would be beneficial for buyers as well as lenders.

At present, once the property is registered, it takes about six months to one year for mutation or granting of ownership rights over the property. Besides, disputes over land titles linger for between 17 and 20 years in courts. With the CLTS linking registration and title, disputes can be minimised.

Sources said that Rajasthan, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh would soon begin work towards giving conclusive land titles.

In 2008, the government had launched Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP) whose objective was to ensure a system of updated land records, automated and automatic mutation, integration between textual and spatial records, interconnectivity between revenue and registration — to replace the present deeds registration and presumptive title system with that of conclusive title guarantee. DILRMP was launched by the Centre in August 2008 with the aims of modernising management of land records, minimising scope of land or property disputes, enhancing transparency in the land records maintenance system, and facilitating the move towards guaranteed conclusive titles to immovable properties.

Even though DILRMP was scheduled to be completed in 2016 with a budget of Rs5,600 crore, the project will now conclude in 2021 with an estimate cost of Rs 11,000 crore because of uneven progress across the states.