Managing non-agricultural property records of villages using ICT tools: e-SWATHU
System of Karnataka, India as case for the study
RAJEEV CHAWLA & SAMARTHARAM N R
Government of Karnataka / National Informatics Centre, GOI, INDIA
nrsamartharam@gmail.com
Paper prepared for presentation at the
“2014 WORLD BANK CONFERENCE ON LAND AND POVERTY”
The World Bank - Washington DC, March 24-27, 2014
Copyright 2014 by author(s). All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this
document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice
appears on all such copies.
Abstract
It is well established fact that usage of ICTs to build e-Governance systems result in bringing
transparency and thereby reduce corruption. Government of Karnataka with its technical partner National
Informatics Centre, Government of India has built excellent system for managing Land Records
administration called BHOOMI. BHOOMI system of Karnataka is an excellent example of sustainable
and successful e-Governance project. Though, BHOOMI has digitized 20 million land records pertaining
to thirty thousand villages of Karnataka, it covers only agricultural lands. Revenue department which is
responsible for managing Record of Rights for all properties as per Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964
manages only agricultural lands thereby ensuing in a situation where in there are no ownership documents
for non-agricultural properties. Citizens were forced to use tax register extracts maintained by local
bodies to transact the properties in the absence of ownership documents. To streamline the management
of properties in villages, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department of Government of Karnataka
has come out with project called e-SWATHU to manage non agricultural properties located in the villages
electronically. This case study would focus on Conceptualization and implementation of e-SWATHU,
Government process reengineering carried out to convert tax account into property records, Key benefits
of the e-SWATHU an e-Governance solution for property records management, Major challenges faced
and how they were addressed. Paper also discusses the ideal scenario that one should reach to bring
orderliness in managing non-agricultural properties in general.
Key Words:
e-SWATHU, e-Governance, transparency, Non-agricultural, Property records
1.0
Background
Land Administration involves administration of both agricultural and non-agricultural land. Land records
management during pre-British period was mainly to assess and collect the land revenue as it was the
biggest source of revenue to the state. During British rule in India, Survey activities were initiated
towards end of 18th Century by East India Company primarily to establish their rule and with an intention
to collect revenue. As part of this process village boundaries were fixed and inside detailed survey was
left to local surveys. In 1767, survey of India was established to carry forward the survey activity which
is basis for creating land records. While performing these surveys prime focus was on revenue earning
pockets and thereby agricultural lands in rural areas and residential plots in the towns and cities were
selected for survey and creating of record of rights / property records.
Though survey of rural agricultural lands done under the title ‘Revenue Survey’ covered most of the
villages except Inam and Jodi villages where land parcel boundaries were not fixed as the land revenue of
these villages was not remitted to government instead was collected by Inamdhars or Jodidhars. Since
Land Revenue was comparatively more than that of revenue that one could have mobilized from
residential properties, no survey work and preparation of ownership records was taken up in the area of
habitation. As mentioned earlier importance was given to agricultural land in demarcating boundaries of
land parcels by giving unique identity called survey numbers within the village. Village maps thus
prepared showed village habitation as “settlement” popularly known as “Goutan” or ‘Gramathana” with
boundaries without getting into details of residential properties with in the village. Survey of plots within
big towns / cities was done under the title ‘City Survey” where non-agricultural lands were surveyed and
mapped to enable creation of property records.
The basis for creating apposite property records of either agricultural lands or nonagricultural lands has
been spatial data by age old practice barring few exceptions like Britain, no property records have been
created for properties within the habitation area of the village where survey of individual parcels of
residential properties have not been carried out all across Karnataka.
Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964 which is the act in force now for managing land mentions about
managing buildings and building sites along with agricultural lands. Detailed procedure of preparing
property records has also been defined. City Survey which is in practice in 48 towns / cities across
Karnataka derives power from these provisions of chapter 13 of Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964 and
chapter 12 of Karnataka Land Revenue Rules 1966.
Though law was in place, preparation of property records for residential properties was not attempted;
some of the main reasons for the same are as follows
1. Labourious nature of activity involving skilled manpower.
2. No demand for property records as registration department, Banks and financial institutions started
using tax records maintained by local bodies to identify the property and owner.
3. Apathy of state governments towards creating proper property management system using modern
technologies.
4. Due to insignificant number of transactions pertaining to properties within habitation area /
gramathana prior to 90’s (when urbanization was not in full swing).
5. City survey was not extended beyond 48 towns / cities in Karnataka. Even in these 48 towns,
jurisdiction of city survey has not been increased due to one or more reasons indicated earlier.
Since city survey was not in place to maintain property records in the villages, demand registers created
using house lists became defacto property records without legal sanctity. Tax account extracts / extract of
Demand Collection and Balance register of properties maintained by local bodies popularly known as
Khatha extracts are considered as property records in the absence non availability of proper ownership
document.
In Karnataka, the Grama Panchayats which are local bodies in the rural areas maintain tax accounts of
properties within the village limits. These records are maintained as per the Karnataka Panchayat Raj
act (Budget and Accounts Rules), 2006. These Grama Panchayats create and maintain documents called
Form-9 and Form-11 which are used as substitute documents for registration and sanctioning loans by
banks and financial institutions. The main objective of Grama Panchayats is to provide civic amenities to
citizen and collect property tax. The maintenance and management of property records is not the domain
of these local bodies. As mentioned earlier since Revenue Department which was supposed to maintain
property records is not maintaining the property records with respect to non-agricultural properties in
villages, Form-9 and Form-11 maintained by Grama Panchayats for collecting property tax are being
used as property records for all property transfers.
The major focus of Grama Panchayats is to bring more and more properties into tax net rather than
finding out the veracity of the property documents before taking them into demand register of property
tax. This has resulted in inserting large set of illegally created properties without following prescribed
procedures into demand registers. Such illegally created properties would not have changed land use,
would not have gone through the department of town and country planning approvals for new layouts in
the peri-urban areas. This has not only resulted in revenue loss to the government but also responsible for
haphazard growth of cities making it difficult to plan infrastructure schemes for present and future
requirements.
2.0
Conceptualization and implementation of e-SWATHU
Honorable High Court of Karnataka in Public interest Writ Petition NO: 12278/2007, has ordered that
registration of illegal properties should be stopped immediately by adopting software solutions.
Honorable High Court of Karnataka felt that stopping transactions on illegal properties is the best way to
stop creation of such properties and felt that only IT systems can impose such discipline in the
government departments. As result an e-Governance solution called e-SWATHU for managing property
records of villages was conceptualized, designed, developed and implemented by National Informatics
Centre for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj department with following objectives.

Maintaining up-to-date records with respect to ownership, extent, dimension, etc., of properties under
the jurisdiction of Grama Panchayats.

Process to undertake updations due to various transactions such as sale, inheritance, partition, gift,
will, land acquisition, etc.,

Facilities to create new property records which are coming up after following due process under law.

Issue of records as and when owner / citizen demands for it.

Electronic data exchange with registration department.

Electronic data exchange with Local Town Planning Authorities.

Implementation of court decree, managing addition and removal of court stay

Incorporation of liabilities on the property and removal of the same as and when demanded.

Maintaining flags against each property with respect to government restrictions such as PTCL, Non
alienation conditions, government / Grama Panchayat property, restrictions imposed by LPAs /
Director town Planning etc.,
Rural Development and Panchayat Raj department had created database of all the properties listed in the
tax demand register in individual Village Panchayats through IT solution called PANCHATANTRA.
While adding properties to Panchatantra database, no check was done to ensure that entries were added
for legally created properties only. This resulted in to a situation wherein Panchantantra data could not be
used directly to issue form-9 and form-11 which are mandated by Revenue Department for registration of
non-agricultural properties.
Government decided to create new database under the project called e-SWATHU to adhere to directions
issued by Honorable High Court of Karnataka and to ensure that clear distinction is available in the
database among legally created properties and properties created with following due legal provisions.
Since all relevant documents required to verify and validate the legality of property creation were not
available with Village Panchayats, Government decided to implement the project in incremental
approach. The property records are being created based on the demand and onus of providing required
documents is on the citizen.
Synchronization between e-SWATHU and Panchatantra was critical as Panchatantra has details of about
12 lakh village properties and whole of budget and accounting software of Village Panchayats is using tax
details from Panchatantra database for accounting purpose. While designing e-SWATHU project, care has
been taken to ensure that e-SWATHU handles only ownership information and Panchantantra continues
to handle tax details. Both softwares will exchange the data through web services for synchronization
using property id as key parameter for data exchange.
3.0
Government Process reengineering carried out to convert tax account into property records
As discussed earlier, in the absence of no other ownership document, tax register extract of local bodies
are being used as document for identifying the property at the time of registration as per Section 21 in
The Registration Act, 1908. Since tax register extract maintained by Village Panchayat did not contain
details like dimensions and boundary details which are essential for identifying the property uniquely as
per section 21 of the registration act, a format was created by vested interests which is not prescribed
under any act or rules to circumvent the provisions of registration act. Government started redesigning
form-9 and form-11 (tax register extract) after honorable High Court directed to bring transparency,
accountability and orderliness in whole activity using ICT tools.
After detailed brainstorming sessions, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj department decided to
under taken following Government Process Re-engineering and accordingly amended Karnataka
Panchayat Raj act (Budget and Accounts Rules), 2006.

With intension to make form-9 as ownership record instead of just tax account, Rural Development &
Panchayat Raj department introduced a new register called FORM-9A which is a master register with
all the relevant data pertaining to non-agricultural properties.
Following tables give details of
parameters that are being captured and stored in Form-91,Form-9, Form-11a and Form-11b
Form 9A
Sl.No
Column Name
1.
District
2.
Taluk
3.
Grama panchayat
4.
Village
5.
Asset I.D. No.
6.
Old Asset I.D. No.
7.
Original Survey No before conversion
8.
Name of the owner of the Asset or / Name of Joint
owners
9.
Name of Father / Mother / Husband / Wife of
owner/Joint owners
10.
Owner/Joint owners photo
11.
Address of the owner/Joint owners
12.
Identification proof of the owner/Joint owners
13.
Name of the Occupant
14.
Biometric thumb impression of the owner/ Joint owners
of the Asset
15.
Site Area
16.
Builtup Area
17.
Mutation Register No
18.
Mutation Register Date
19.
Grama Panchayat Resolution No
20.
Grama Panchayat Resolution Date
21.
Dimension (In Sq. mt.)
22.
Checkbandi- North
23.
Checkbandi- South
24.
Checkbandi- East
25.
Checkbandi- West
26.
Nature of the Asset (Building)
27.
Type of Asset
28.
Classification of Asset
29.
Type of transaction
30.
Asset identification documents
31.
Asset Photo
32.
Photo with GIS coordinates and details of coordinates
33.
Other rights & liabilities
Table 1.0
Form 9
Sl.No
Column Name
1.
District
2.
Taluk
3.
Grama panchayat
4.
Village
5.
Asset I.D. No.
6.
Old Asset I.D. No.
7.
Original Survey No before conversion
8.
Name of the owner of the Asset or / Name of Joint
owners
9.
Name of Father / Mother / Husband / Wife of
owner/Joint owners
10.
Owner/Joint owners photo
11.
Address of the owner/Joint owners
12.
Identification proof of the owner/Joint owners
13.
Biometric thumb impression of the owner/ Joint owners
of the Asset
14.
Site Area
15.
Builtup Area
16.
Mutation Register No
17.
Mutation Register Date
18.
Grama Panchayat Resolution No
19.
Grama Panchayat Resolution Date
20.
Dimension (In Sq. mt.)
21.
Checkbandi- North
22.
Checkbandi- South
23.
Checkbandi- East
24.
Checkbandi- West
25.
Nature of the Asset (Building)
26.
Type of Asset
27.
Classification of Asset
28.
Type of transaction
29.
Asset identification documents
30.
Asset Photo
31.
Total Demand
32.
Tax paid
33.
Balance to be paid
Table 2.0
Form 11A
Sl.No
Column Name
1.
District
2.
Taluk
3.
Grama panchayat
4.
Village
5.
Asset I.D. No.
6.
Old Asset I.D. No.
7.
Name of the owner of the Asset or / Name of Joint
owners
8.
Name of Father / Mother / Husband / Wife of
owner/Joint owners
9.
Owner/Joint owners photo
10.
Address of the owner/Joint owners
11.
Identification proof of the owner/Joint owners
12.
Biometric thumb impression of the owner/ Joint owners
of the Asset
13.
Site Area
14.
Builtup Area
15.
Dimension (In Sq. mt.)
16.
Nature of the Asset (Building)
17.
Type of Asset
18.
Classification of Asset
19.
Type of transaction
20.
Asset identification documents
21.
Asset Photo
22.
Total demand for the current year....
23.
Demand of previous years
24.
Gross Demand
25.
Tax paid
26.
Balance to be paid
Table 3.0
Form 11B
Sl.No
Column Name
1.
District
2.
Taluk
3.
Grama panchayat
4.
Village
5.
Asset I.D. No.
6.
Old Asset I.D. No.
7.
Name of the owner of the Asset or / Name of Joint
owners
8.
Name of Father / Mother / Husband / Wife of
owner/Joint owners
9.
Owner/Joint owners photo
10.
Address of the owner/Joint owners
11.
Identification proof of the owner/Joint owners
12.
Biometric thumb impression of the owner/ Joint owners
of the Asset
13.
Site Area
14.
Builtup Area
15.
Dimension (In Sq. mt.)
16.
Nature of the Asset (Building)
17.
Type of Asset
18.
Classification of Asset
19.
Type of transaction
20.
Asset identification documents
21.
Asset Photo
22.
Total Demand
23.
Tax paid
24.
Balance to be paid
25.
Mutation Register No
26.
Mutation Register Date
27.
Grama Panchayat Resolution No
28.
Grama Panchayat Resolution Date
Table 4.0

It is interesting to note that form-9 and form-11 notified under Karnataka Panchayat Raj act
(Budget and Accounts Rules), 2006 had very few parameters and focus was only on tax collection.
Following tables show contents of form-9 and form-11 before amending.
Form-9 (before Amendment)
Sl.No
Column Name
1.
Name of the Gram Panchayat
2.
Name of the village
3.
Identification of property
4.
Property area
5.
Owner(s) name
6.
Name of the occupant
7.
House rent per annum
8.
Year wise tax to be paid (past 4 years)
9.
Tax Paid year wise (past 4 years)
10.
Remarks
Table 5.0
Form-11 (Before amendment)
Sl.No
Column Name
1.
Name of the Gram Panchayat
2.
Name of the village
3.
Assessment No
4.
House Number
5.
Owner Name
6.
Name of the occupant
7.
Previous Year’s Tax details
8.
Current Year Demand details
9.
Demand type
10.
Assesment
11.
Mutation Register Number
12.
Mutation Register Date
13.
Receipts
14.
Tax to be paid
Table 6.0

It is conspicuously clear that lot of government process re-engineering was carried out before making
a tax document into a near property / ownership document.

Form-9 is being issued to following type of properties only if documentary evidences are provided.

All properties for which Tahsildar of the taluk has issued certificate of declaration stating that the
property falls within the Grama Thana (Village limits defined in original survey) limits.

Duly converted as per the provisions under of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 by the
Revenue Department and also have approved layout plans sanctioned as per the Town and
Country Planning Act.

All properties sanctioned by Government under various government schemes such as
Basava
housing scheme, Ambedkar housing scheme and Indira Awaas Yojana.


For properties which are approved for industrial purpose by KIADB

Farm building/house approved by Revenue department
Form-11A is issued along with every Form-9. Form -11A register is also called as Register of
Demand, Collection and Balance of land and building for properties where Form-9 can be generated.

Form-11B is a document issued by Village Panchayat for non-agricultural properties for properties
for which Form-9 cannot be generated as property is not created following legal provisions. However
Village panchayat can charge property tax for the property as they will be providing basic amenities
people living in such properties. Owners of the properties having Form-11b alone cannot transact
their property unless following conditions are met.
a. At least there should have been one transaction recorded prior to 14-06-2013. (The day eSWATHU came into existence). This will ensure that citizens who have invested their hard
earned money should not the barred for transacting. However the system will ensure that no
new illegal properties can be created as illegal layout owners cannot sell the sites created
without following prescribed laws and procedures.
b. At least six months electricity bill or statement of account existence for period prior to 14-062013. This has been introduced to take care of people who have constructed houses in their
own agricultural land and leaving there since long.

Registration department has been advised to register only on the basis of form-9 and form-11a or
form-11b issued from e-SWATHU software which has digitally signed bar code of Panchayat
Development Officer. No manual records should be accepted for registration purpose.

Since Honorable High Court has insisted in its order to adopt IT solution to stop illegal transactions, it
is proposed to implement electronic integration between e-SWATHU and Registration system in
coming days so that no fraudulent papers are used for registration to defeat the objective of the court
order.
4.0
Key benefits of the e-SWATHU
1. Good-bye to creation of unlawful properties
As described in the earlier sections, laws are amended by Rural Development & Panchayat raj
department to issue form-9 only for properties created following prescribed procedure of law. The
documents required for each category of properties have been defined and documents thus
collected in the process of creating and issuing Form-9 are being scanned and made available to
officers up in the hierarchy for verification. Documents based on which the form-9 has been
issued are also listed as part of form-9. Sub-registrars have been instructed through government
orders to register properties only when form-9 is issued through e-SWATHU. Keeping common
man in view government has relaxed producing form-9 during registration. The new document
called form-11B has been introduced which with certain prerequisites like sale deed prior to 1406-2014 or electricity bill prior to 14-06-2014 can be used for performing sale transactions.
2. Village Panchayat officials made more accountable in maintenance of property records
Before introduction of computerized and digitally signed property records, village panchayats use
to issue these documents in formats which were not in accordance with law. There was no
accountability and they were not even maintaining the issue registers for issuing such documents.
E-SWATHU has made them accountable as all village panchayat officials’ work on workflow
based software using bio-metric finger print authentication and documents issued are digitally
signed by issuing authority.
3. No more fraudulent registrations using fake documents
There were instances where in property documents were fabricated by touts and middlemen at
sub registrar’s office itself and registration transactions were executed based on such fake
documents. Now that digitally signed and bar coded documents are being issued, chances of fake
documents have reduced a lot. Further, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department has
introduced secured stationery with hologram for issuing property records in Bangalore and
surrounding districts where property values are high and chances of creating fake documents is
lucrative.
4. Facilitates verification at the time of registration
All the sub registrars are provided with a facility in e-SWATHU to verify the authenticity of the
documents produced for registration. Either by selecting district, taluk, Hobli, village & property
id or by unique document id sub registrars can verify the form-9, form-11a and form-11b issued
form village panchayats on the web.
5. Property records published on web for verification by all stake holders
As explained in point number five, any stake holders including citizens can check the property
records on the web. All documents created in e-SWATHU are made accessible by public.
6. Access to property records made easy
Property records in the form of Form-9, Form-11A and Form-11B were made available across the
counter. Anybody or everybody can obtain the property record copy by paying Rs. 50.00.
7. Mutation module is in place to handle updations
Mutation module is put in place to handle updations to property records resulting out of
transactions such as sale, inheritance, partition, gift, will, sub division and amalgamation etc.,
8. Advantages of e-Governance system completely exploited
Usage of ICTs to build e-Governance systems will go long way in bringing transparency and
thereby reducing corruption and improving quality of property records. The basic characteristics
of a well designed e-Governance system such as audit trail, data integrity, role based access and
data security has been incorporated in e-SWATHU to bring in the much required traceability,
accountability and reliability required for any land administration system.
5.0
Major challenges faced and how they were addressed.
Change management is very critical for implementation of any new system, success of project
depends on good the change was managed. While implementing e-SWATHU following issues
were faced
1. Capacity building among RD & PR hierarchy in computer skills
Since e-SWATHU is handling property / ownership documents without which no transactions are
possible in sub registrar’s office, a workflow based system has been designed having whole of
RD & PR hierarchy right from Second Division Accounts Assistant to Director level. All these
officials have to work on software for some or other activity and their computer usage skills had
to be improved. Zilla Panchayats / Taluk Panchayats were empowered to provide basic training in
computers with the help of District Informatics Officer of National Informatics Centre at district
level itself. Number of training programs were organized to accomplish this task.
2. Making officers to understand importance of property records
Since form inception of Panchayat raj system in Karnataka in 1983, properties registers were
being maintained for the purpose of collecting tax and they were never looked as ownership
documents even though they were being used by Registration department for property transfers. It
was herculean task to make officers working in these local bodies to understand importance of
property records and convince them as to why documentary evidences are important to create
form-9, form-11 and form-11b.
Series of Video conference sessions were held under the
chairmanship of Secretary, Panchayat Raj to explain the importance of the project. Technical
session through video conferencing were conducted by National Informatics Centre which had
designed and
developed software to district level technical resource for providing better
implementation support. District level workshops and training sessions were held where in
officers from state level participated and clarified all the doubts of field level officials.
3. Managing evolving requirements
Greatest challenge in e-Governance in government sector is unabated change requests and
innovative ideas after failure of another innovative idea implemented earlier. Normally
specifications are not freezed in government projects and requirements are not spelt out clearly
during initial FRS / SRS stages. Domain expertise of software solution provider is critical in such
scenarios and National Informatics Centre with its huge domain expertise in government business
has managed it well and has made project successful.
6.0
Implementation status of e-SWATHU
e-SWATHU has been implemented all across Karnataka State in 5600 village panchayats with
17,000 users working with different roles and privileges. All Panchayat Development Officers
have been issued Digital Signature Cards for approving transactions and issuing property
documents. Bio-metrics finger prints of all officials working on the software have been captured
and authentication is only through finger prints.
Following tables shows the number documents issued in different districts of Karnataka state as
on 28th of Feb 2014.
District
Form-9
Form-11B
Bidar
95
0
Haveri
70
0
Bagalkote
2455
3
Dakshina Kannada
3210
47
Kodagu
114
0
Raihur
930
34
Bellary
562
39
Chikkamagaluru
967
7
Belgaum
698
12
Mysore
4777
25
Gadag
280
0
Kolar
2990
1
301
0
Shivmogga
1511
4
Bangalore (Rural)
3038
5
148
0
19949
30
3117
0
Uttara Kannada
Dharwad
Bangalore
Koppal
Ramanagar
3578
91
Chitradurg
2615
5
Chikkaballapur
4816
0
529
0
3626
16
Bijapura
685
0
Hassan
2540
3
Mandya
624
2
Tumkur
1904
4
Yadgir
379
0
Chamarajnagara
339
0
Gulbarga
644
0
67491
328
Davanagere
Udupi
Total
Table 7.0
Following table gives number of documents issued to public and user charges collected since 1406-2013
Amount collected
District Name
Form-9
Form-11A
(in Rupees)
136
85
11050
Dakshna Kannada
3911
3766
383850
Bagalkote
1970
1666
181800
Haveri
165
117
14100
Raichur
1072
1065
115600
Bellary
669
617
64300
Belgaum
809
754
78150
Chikkamagaluru
1525
1223
137400
Kolar
3426
3274
335000
Gadag
319
287
30300
Shivmogga
2012
1949
198050
Bangalore (Rural)
3552
3518
366150
Mysore
5270
5158
533450
Bidar
Bangalore
23264
21769
2251650
192
122
15700
Koppal
3632
3445
353850
Ramanagar
4215
5042
462850
Kodagu
132
150
14100
Uttara Kannada
350
262
30600
Chamaraj Nagara
392
463
42400
Gulbarga
733
720
173800
Davanagere
757
524
64050
Udupi
4671
4439
455500
Bijapur
776
630
70300
Hassan
3082
2917
299950
Chitradurga
3000
2923
324400
Chikkaballapur
5574
5335
560950
Mandya
784
696
86550
Tumkur
2505
2505
250500
Yadgir
452
435
108600
79347
75856
8014950
Dharwad
Total
Table 8.0
On an average, it takes about four days for creating property records after submitting all the
relevant documents to Village Panchayat. Four days to create property record without survey
component is good by any standards keeping complexities involved in land administration.
District Name
Avg. Days
Bidar
4
Uttar Kannada
2
Mysore
3
Haveri
11
Kodagu
3
Chikkamagaluru
3
Belgaum
3
Bagalkote
7
Dakshin Kannada
1
Gadag
8
Kolar
5
Shivmogga
3
Raichur
2
Chitradurga
5
Chikkaballapur
4
Bellary
2
Ramanagara
5
Bangalore (Rural)
8
Dharwad
5
Koppal
2
Davangere
2
Udupi
1
Bangalore
10
Bijapur
8
Hasan
3
Mandya
2
Tumkur
5
Yadgir
0
Chamarajnagara
6
Gulbarga
4
Average
4.23
Table 9.0
7.0
Ideal system for managing non-agricultural properties
Managing non- agricultural properties has been challenge in Karnataka due to various reasons
discussed in earlier sections. Local bodies have not understood the importance of ownership
documents and creating them to their whims and fancies without proper verification and
validation. Keeping the challenges faced in the area in view, following framework is suggested to
manage non-agricultural properties.
There is need to build IT systems in each of stakeholders involved in handling non-agricultural
properties. The stake holders are as follows with brief description of their roles and
responsibilities as per the law
Revenue Department: Department which is suppose to handle all properties but, presently
handling only agricultural lands. Revenue department has been given powers under Karnataka
Land Revenue Act 1964 to convert the land use from agricultural to non agriculture purpose.
Revenue department should develop IT system for conversion which accesses agricultural land
database, BHOOMI in case of Karnataka and carry out activities to convert the selected land
parcel’s land use from agricultural to non agricultural in nature.
Local Planning / Urban Development Authorities: LPAs / UDAs which are under Urban
Development Department operate drawing powers provided in Karnataka Town and Country
planning act 1961 for approving the layout plans. While approving such plans LPAs/UDA’s
keeping zonal regulations prescribed in Mater Plans. Conversion order of Revenue Department is
re-requisite for layout plan approvals by LPA’s / UDA’s. Workflow based end-to-end software
called “e-VINYASA” has been developed and deployed for handling layout plan approvals in
LPA’s around Bangalore and same is being extended all across the state.
Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department: In the absence of no other documents,
tax register maintained by Village Panchayats have become property records for property
transfers. With orders of honorable High Court, RD & PR department has amended Karnataka
Panchayat Raj Act to transform tax register extract into an ownership record. Village Panchayats
after ensuring that all the supporting documents are in place, Form-9 and Form-11A or Form-11B
(property records) are being issued through e-SWATHU software.
Urban Local Bodies (ULBs): Urban local bodies also maintain tax registers similar to that of
Village panchayats. These are called khatha registers in ULBs, these khatha extracts are used for
transacting properties in sub registrar’s office. There is need to build system similar to eSWATHU in ULBs to bring transparency, accountability and data integrity.
Registration Department: Registration department is the one which is involved in property
transactions. Most of the illegality can be controlled if proper mechanisms are put in place in
these offices to control the transactions on illegally created properties. Registration department in
Karnataka has computerized its activities and software system called KAVERI is in place. Need
of the hour is KAVERI system should talk to other electronic systems like e-SWATHU and
ULBs property record maintenance system and consume the data for verification and validation
purpose before allowing transactions happen. Karnataka has achieved such electronic integration
of KAVERI with BHOOMI (agricultural land record management system).
Following diagram depicts the electronic integration which is essential to brining orderliness in
the management of non agricultural properties. Revenue department should electronically pull
agricultural land from RoR database (BHOOMI in case of Karnataka) and zonal regulations from
LPAs/UDAs and accordingly change the land use from agricultural to non-agricultural purpose
which is requested by applicants. After the change in land use Record of Rights database
pertaining to agricultural lands should be updated with the new land use type by exchanging data
electronically. LPAs and UDAs should only depend on the land use parameters maintained by
RoR database and not paper records. Layout approval system (e-Vinyasa in case of Karnataka)
should be able to connect to RoR database and pickup the RoRs for land Parcels involved in
layout approval. Once layout is approved using software systems in LPAs/UDAs and digitally
signed approval orders are issued, RoR database should be informed about this and flag the
survey number involved in layout so that no transaction can take place on these land parcels.
Otherwise, unscrupulous elements can transaction the same piece of land to multiple buyers using
site number as identifier in some deeds and survey numbers as identifiers as in other deeds.
Fig 1.0
Local bodies serving in villages (Village Panchayats) and urban areas (Municipalities and
corporations) should consume data from approved layout database (similar to e-Vinyasa system
in Karnataka) where approved layout details are available readily for creating property /
ownership documents. Government also while distributing sites / houses to deprived class of
society should follow procedures as done in case of LPAs/UDAs to create properties following
provisions of law and enable local bodies’ to access the details electronically. This process will
ensure that property records are created for all properties following the prescribed norms of law.
Registration department should be allowed to perform transactions only on land parcels /
properties for which entries are available in Villages Panchayats / Urban Local bodies’ database.
Data of properties and ownership should be picked by registration department electronically from
authorities who maintain and own the data and then allow transactions to happen. This ensures
that only properties created legally by following all the norm prescribed in acts and rules get
transacted. Further, Registration system (KAVERI in case of Karnataka) should electronically
transfer registration details to concerned local body so that mutation activities can be taken up by
systems like e-SWATHU (in case of Village Panchayat properties) without human discretion.
8.0
Conclusion
e-SWATHU is wonderful example of creation of digital property records from scratch without
involving survey activities. Once property database is ready, one can always use satellite imagery
to identify them on the ground and use concept of indicative cadastre without mentioning
dimension. Most of the illegal transactions pertaining to properties under the jurisdiction of
Village Panchayats have been stopped after inception of e-SWATHU system. Incremental
approach of creating property records on demand has also reduced pressure on the Village
Panchayst officials and on an average they are able to deliver the property records within four
days. Citizen has been empowered by providing access to his / her property records on web either
too it was not possible before e-SWATHU.
References:
1.
Cadastral surveys in India by Prof. P. Misra, June 2005 issue of Coordinates magazine.
2.
Karnataka Land revenue Act 1964
3.
Software Requirement Specification Document of e-SWATHU by National Informatics centre,
Karnataka.
4.
Karnataka Panchayat Raj act (Budget and Accounts Rules), 2006.
5.
City Survey Manual by F.G.H. Anderson