CHENNAI: Now the records of land ownership in the State will soon be available just at a click of button as per the diktat of the State Business Reform Action Plan (SBARP)-2019 - Implementation Guide for States and Union Territories.
In a bid to usher in transparency and ensure ease of doing business, the state has been mandated by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade to come out with a website which would have Records of Rights at all Land Records Offices, data of Property Tax payment dues online for all urban local bodies (ULBs), land transaction deeds of last 10 years (2009-2018) across all sub-registrar offices in the State.
The website will also be aligned with revenue court case and civil court case data pertaining to land. This will have court case number, name of parties involved, date of filing of court case, status of case (Ongoing/Resolved).
The website shall be publicly accessible and will help in establishing property ownership and identify tax encumbrances. The integration shall be done for all areas of the state, the SBARP said. To achieve this, the state has to digitise Records of Rights at all Land Records Offices which will ensure the information on ownership is available for pre-mutation verification of land transactions.
“In case the names of buyer and seller are not available, the record should reflect the current ownership details,” the SBARP said. Besides, the state has been asked to digitise and publish data of property tax payment dues online for all ULBs besides transferring land transaction deeds of last 10 years (2009-2018) across all sub-registrar offices in the State online.
The main aim is to digitize records of liability towards property tax at all local municipalities of the State which would clearly indicate the encumbrances on the property. In case where land records do not cover urban property, municipal tax records will represent the prima facie ownership or occupancy of the immovable property. This could cut down the cases in which investors get cheated over the ownership of the land, said sources.
The state has also been asked to provide data of all land banks in State-owned industrial estates on an online system or portal in the public domain. The main aim is that the users should be able to access all information they need to apply for land parcels (industrial) from the website of the department.
It has also directed the state to develop a GIS system for displaying availability of land and infrastructure of all State/UT-owned industrial estates along with the prevailing land rates besides providing details about available connectivity infrastructure (including road, rail, airports), utility infrastructure (including electrical substations) and other infrastructure (including police station, fire station) for all State-owned industrial estates.