February 26, 2015
West Bengal achieves milestone of prompt affordable quality Land Records System
West Bengal will be the first state in India to completely digitise its land record, transfer and mutation process effective March 2015. This is the result of the State Government’s focused attention to create transparent and user friendly land record system in the State done in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre, West Bengal.
Wide Area Networking (WAN) based computing is used to provide the necessary integration of land record verification, registration, updating of record and mutation services. The system works seamlessly between the local registration office and the central server. Local Registration office will provide the status of Record along with assessment slip. This generates an alert to the purchaser to know the Recorded owner of the property. The cost of mutation fee is also printed.
Next the Deed is registered on presentation following the existing procedures. Mutation fee is also collected. The details of transaction is sent to the LR central server and mutation case is automatically filed. This saves time, creates transparency and cuts down any possible harassment of the buyer and seller.
The concerned land official would know of the arrival of a case on his computer. Procedure as existing then can be followed to generates hearing notice, and after hearing the final disposition.
West Bengal Government had initiated digitisation of 68386 map sheets in 2008. Initially the activity was slow but picked up in the last three years with the support of the State Government. NIC has completed 62000 map sheets. Since rest of the map sheets were found to be not in good condition these were prepared from its RS version by updating the same in manual mode.
The digitisation is made in layers such as area, line and point which is termed as “GIS ready digitization”. The State did not give priorities in the projection part of the map sheet, as the simple aim was to provide individual plot map along with ROR, then make digital updation of map with the help of distance measurement and also to make the cadastral map available to public on demand on immediate basis.
All the 3 objectives were fulfilled with the software “BHUCHITRA” custom developed by NIC and implemented at all the 341 Block land offices of the State.
Now the State is going ahead to implement ‘On Registration Mutation Service’, among the first states to implement the Centre’s ‘e-dharti” scheme.
All the 247 Registration Offices distributed across the State has implemented Registration Process automation System called “CORD”. Registration is a 2 stage process, where Registrant public needs to know the stamp duty, registration fees payable for the property to be transacted under what instrument. A unique assessment slip gets printed & handed over to the registrant. Deed is prepared accordingly & presented to the Registering offices with the unique assessment slip. The deed is registered and delivered on the same day. The completion of the digitization illustrates the state government’s commitment to ease the governance process and make it people friendly.
