Suspicion taints computerised land records

Documents from various districts allegedly reconstructed before digitisation in absence of original data


Razzak Abro November 11, 2020
PHOTO: AFP

Where land record computerisation appears to have streamlined the process of accessing data for the public, it has also raised significant certain concern about the reliability of the figures.

Although Sindh government touts the move to be a landmark step towards achieving greater transparency, seasoned bureaucrats see the process to be prone to one too many errors.

According to a retired officer and member of the provincial board of revenues, digital records in many districts of Sindh, including Karachi, were computerised after being re-constructed. “Original land documents were not available, which meant that all documents had to be made from scratch just before computerisation. This paints a glaring question mark on the authenticity of the records,” the officer said on conditions of anonymity.

Various reasons and excuses have been offered to justify the reconstruction of the documents, including a fire incident which had allegedly destroyed all previous evidence.

“It was mostly records of Karachi’s older areas which were reported to have been burned in a fire and needed to be made anew. But almost a similar excuse was also presented in various other districts, where records of entire talukas were found missing,” the officer told.

“In these talukas either the land registers were not available or the old Form-7 was missing. Admittedly, some records had also been lost or taken away by the anti-corruption officials and never returned,” he added.

As per the unnamed source, although districts like Mirpur Khas and Sanghar were considered relatively better than other regions in terms of record availability, they too were not free of discrepancies. “Original land documents for various talukas including Salephat were also never found and had to be made anew.”

Speaking about the issue, Amanullah Khoso, a resident of Karachi, described a similar situation in the metropolis, which he himself had been witness to. “My community in particular was victim of severe land fraud at the hands of government officials. They conveniently used the excuse of missing records to scam hundreds of people,” the resident alleged.

On the other hand however, upon being contacted for his comments on the matter, Provincial Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah denied all claims of loopholes, liabilities and land fraud associated to the computerisation of records. “The computerisation process was carried out in a clear and transparent manner. There is no evidence of any scams in the record,” Shah told The Express Tribune

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11th, 2020.

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