How IT can Improve our Lives

We read in newspapers about fraudulent sale of a property to more than one person or sale of a property which is already mortgaged. Unscrupulous owners get certified copy of sale deed of their property from the office of sub-registrar after faking loss of original document. With this one property is sold to two buyers or mortgaged with two banks. Such an activity is possible because there is no mechanism in place to enable people to find details of ownership of properties from the government record quickly and reliably.
There is no system for maintenance of record of right in respect of urban properties in most of our cities and Delhi is no exception to the same. After a property is converted from lease hold to free hold, DDA stops recording change of ownership. Developers like DLF who developed colonies like Hauz Khas, Greater Kailash etc. were not mandated to keep record of change of ownership of properties developed by them. MCD does keep record of owners but it is for payment of property tax only. It is not the record of right. Thus all past sale transactions of a property are recorded in the sale deed. Also the prospective buyers and mortgaging banks have to spend lots of money in getting records of sub-registrar checked by revenue advocates before actual transaction gets conducted. Even after that, incidents of double sale do take place. These can be avoided if particulars of all properties, names of latest owners as per sale deed and the fact whether property is mortgaged or disputed, are put on Internet with simple search mechanism. The banks and Financial Institutions could also have access to such database on real time basis to record and update details of mortgage, etc.
This can be achieved by drawing lessons from the International award winning computerized land record system of Karnataka called ‘Bhoomi’, and the Computerized system for registration of sale deed of Delhi called ‘e-Dastavej’. These are not only the well known examples of use of Information Technology (IT) in Government but also ones to show way on how to achieve this task. Those who had to wait for days to get a patta from Tehsildar’s office or the original sale deed from the office of sub-registrar would vouch for the comfort IT has brought to the common man.
Computerization of records of agricultural land and registration of sale deed/ lease deed etc. are two projects out of dozen odd mission mode projects identified for implementation in all states in a time bound manner under National e-Governance Plan. In many states IT has enabled people to get copies of ‘patta’ (land record) of agricultural land across the counter or through a touch screen kiosk. In many states including Delhi, the entire record of agricultural land can be seen on the Internet by selecting village and khasra number. Use of computers has led to drastic reduction of turnaround time of registration of sale deed, lease deed and other such documents. It used to take few weeks or months to get back the original record after registration of such records. Now they are returned in an hour. Photographs of buyers and sellers are taken using digital camera and the documents are scanned and archived for quick retrieval. Quick search on property number or buyer or seller is possible today on this database. The entire data on registration is being made available on its website by South-West district in Delhi. Very soon it is expected to be made available for entire Delhi., which will enable people to check authenticity of sale deeds etc. online before they buy a property.

This way the first step towards creation of database on urban properties and their buyers has already been taken. This needs to be further augmented by adding to it all such transactions which have taken place in past. Going back in past upto 1950 or so will suffice. Simultaneously conversion of all records of properties developed by DDA and other properties developed during last 50 years or so into electronic database will be required. Both of them when merged, cleaned and further refined will provide the platform to start this service, which will go a long way in solving the problem of lack of record of right for urban properties in Delhi till a law is made to enable city government to determine records of right and issue ‘patta’ to owners after conducting settlement. Search from this database could be made a paid service to sustain the project in the long run.
Even in the exercise of preparation of records of rights IT can play a major role. Base digital map of Delhi city has already been prepared on which toponomic data (House Number and colony name etc) needs to be recorded and settlement done. Some cities in our country have already started this exercise. Preparation of records of right for urban properties, like the way it is done for agricultural land, will eliminate lots of property litigation and will also ensure that the properties can be used as collateral for raising capital from market. Lack of this facility has led to properties worth lakhs of crores being blocked; a phenomenon explained beautifully by Hernando de Soto in his book, "Mystery of Capital"