The Hindu : Karnataka News : Revenue Department to become more people friendly

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 04, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Revenue Department to become more people friendly

By S. Rajendran

M.P. Prakash

BANGALORE, OCT. 3. The coalition Government in the State has chalked out several schemes to reach out to the people. Among them is the transformation of the Revenue Department which has a direct link with the people in rural areas, especially farmers.

Credit should go to the previous Congress regime that introduced computerisation in the department and the Government has decided not only to continue the effort but also hasten it. It may be a costly exercise, but the Government is determined to make the optimum use of information technology for the benefit of the people.

The Revenue Department is one of the oldest departments set up by the East India Company to collect land revenue from the people.

Bhoomi project

The Bhoomi project, which was introduced some time ago to computerise land records, has been a success, and it even received a pat from the Prime Minister. Appreciating the work, the Prime Minister wrote to Chief Ministers of all States advising them to follow the Karnataka example.

The Minister for Revenue and Parliamentary Affairs, M.P. Prakash,told The Hindu that details about the Bhoomi project had been sought by several States and also by Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, some other SAARC countries, and Zimbabwe. Some of them had even sent delegations to Bangalore to interact with the officials who designed the software.

Surprise visits

Mr. Prakash said the focus now was to make the department people friendly bereft of red tape, bureaucratic delay, and corruption.

To ensure that the employees were committed to their work, surprise checks of the offices of tahsildars, assistant commissioners, and even deputy commissioners had started. (The Minister himself has taken the lead by visiting offices in the districts).

In his view, the extensive use of IT would go a long way in meeting the aspirations of the people.

There would be a time-bound reply to the people and the land records sought by the citizens would be given to them within a specified period.

Privatising work

An interesting initiative mooted by the department pertains to privatising a part of the work done by lower level officials. Copies of land records sought by the people were now given for Rs. 15 thanks to the implementation of the Bhoomi project. This work would now be assigned to unemployed graduates in rural areas. They would have to provide computerised copies to the applicants at Rs. 10 each. Nearly two crore land documents of nearly 70 lakh farmers have been computerised.

Kiosks

Mr. Prakash said there was a proposal to open around 2,000 Bhoomi kiosks across the State and the State Government would extend some support to unemployed persons interested in running them. The youths who could earn around Rs. 5,000 a month would have to invest Rs. 50,000 and the Government would help them obtain bank loans at a lower rate of interest. The Bhoomi software would be provided to them and the youths could access the land documents in a jiffy and obtain a printout of them.

Merger of projects

The proposal was to also merge the Bhoomi project with the Cauvery project which was another ambitious software venture of the department related to documents registered in the offices of sub-registrars. Applications pertaining to copies of the original property documents would, however, have to be processed and could therefore not be made over across the country. However, all applications would be processed within a deadline.

Even the new "khatas" for properties would be available under the scheme. Efforts were also on to further reduce the cost per copy from the proposed Rs. 10 to Rs. 5 by using the blank space available on the reverse of the copy for advertisements. The advertisements would however be restricted to farm-related equipment and services, including fertilizers, pesticides, tractors etc.

Registration

The Minister said efforts were also on to enable registration of properties through the Internet. This scheme would be implemented before the commencement of the next revenue year starting on July 1.

The Karnataka Stamps and Registrations Act would be amended for this purpose. All sale documents could be registered through the Internet and the collection of registration charges would be by the use of bank debit or credit cards. The State would thus be first to implement the scheme. Bangalore would also have a central sub-registrar office shortly and all properties in the city could be registered there. Hitherto, properties could be registered only in the office of the sub-registrar of the jurisdiction.

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