Land management records: Land mafia, missing data hindering computerisation

Some of the records had to be ‘reconstructed’ and verified all over again

ISLAMABAD:

The Punjab government is facing an uphill battle over the computerisation of land records. The revenue department has catalogued the resistance it currently faces from the land mafia and some revenue functionaries.

Despite the hurdles, the Punjab government intends to complete the project by November, 2015, according to a progress report on the land records management and information systems projects.

The report — submitted to the Supreme Court by senior Board of Revenue member Nadeem Ashraf — says the project is a top priority for the government however it faces certain limitations, and therefore requires additional time for completion.

The Supreme Court had directed all provincial governments on June 15, 2010, to computerise their land records.

The report says the Revenue Department is facing strong resistance from the land mafia and certain revenue functionaries. In several districts, some records, including the register haqdaran zameen, field books, garwari, taghaurat and mutations, have gone “missing”. This requires detailed reconstruction of records and the government has spent considerable time trying to retrieve these records, the report says.

The government has admitted that there were some errors in the documents. For example, some of the details in RHZ and shajra nasb do not match. A lot of the mutations have also not been consigned in tehsil record rooms. The report says that the government has so far scanned 31 million pages and computed the data of 55.7 million land owners.

The report says that the government has established a data centre for this in Lahore in collaboration with the PTCL. The government has purchased computers and equipment and set them up in 142 service centres in the province.

The report says that the government established the office of the assistant director for land records (ADLR) to check corruption in the Revenue Department. As many as 88 ADLRs have been inducted through the Punjab Public Service Commission and posted at the operations service centre. The report says 217 more ADLRs would be recruited soon.

The report says the issuance of fard and the attestation of mutations will be carried out at service centres established in each tehsil. The relevant forms will carry photographs and thumb impressions of applicants, the report says.

Land records computerised so far have been uploaded on the department’s website. This way, anyone can access land records at any time, it says.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif chairs a progress review meeting in this regard each month.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2014.