Maharashtra government has started digitisation of land records under the National Land Record Modernisation Programme which aims at ushering in the system of providing online access of land details and plugging of loopholes.
Apart from bringing in transparency, digitisation would provide government with exact data on the ownership of land, which will come handy while giving a push to the process of industrialisation.
Digitisation has been started in all 358 talukas of the state, out of which land details of 17 talukas have been placed online while trial runs are underway for the rest.
“Once the land records are digitised, people will be able to see details of any particular land online, provided they have the survey number. They will also be able to see their 7/12 extract (an extract from the land register maintained by the revenue department) online,” Revenue Secretary Manu Kumar Srivastav told PTI.
He said people would not have to visit talathis (revenue officials) once digitisation process is accomplished.
“People will now be able to see the status of a particular land online. This means that they can purchase
land, give deeds, etc. at the click of a button. Mutation entry too will become automatic. They will not need to visit talathis anymore,” the officer said.
Srivastav said the administration is conducting trial runs in 341 talukas wherein online data is being compared with the manual data, with technical aspects being looked into and corrections, wherever required, are being carried out.
“People will now know on whose name a particular piece of land is registered and which land has been marked as government land,” he said.
According to another Revenue official, the government will have the exact details of land available with it once the digitisation process is completed.
“Getting details of the available land will help us give a push to industrialisation and our smart cities project.
Besides this, we will know how much land does a person have.
Hence, that person will not be able to evade paying tax anymore,” the official said.
“At times, land acquisition for development projects had been done but the 7/12 land extract did not reflect these changes. Thus, the person whose land was fraudulently acquired sells it to another person by taking advantage of this loophole. In some cases people had mortgaged acquired properties for obtaining bank loans,” he added.
Central government had launched the National Land Records Modernisation Programme (NLRMP) in 2008 for digitisation of land records.
However, Maharashtra’s record in its implementation so far is poor with the State utilising only 3.63 per cent of NLRMP funds in 2008-11, according to the audit done by Union Rural Development ministry in 2012.
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