THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With several hundred land records missing and many of them not properly maintained, the digitisation of the records in the Land Tribunals has got under way.
The digitisation will help to streamline the entire records, said the Land Revenue Commissionerate officials.
Land Revenue Commissioner A T James told Express it was as part of the Centre’s ambitious Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme the government undertook the modernisation of all the 22 Tribunal offices.
“There have been numerous complaints relating to the missing title deeds(pattayams) and old records. As a first step, we decided to digitise the existing records in the Land Tribunals,” he said.
The move was prompted by the Tribunals’ lack of facilities to protect the old documents.
According to the Land Revenue Commissioner, there would be a comprehensive data of all the lands in the state once the process was completed.
“We are doing our best to put together a comprehensive data of the entire records. This would take a while as all the records should be scanned before digitising them,” he said.
Besides, it was revealed `80 lakh from the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme would be utilised for the Land Tribunals’ digitisation. In addition to this, the `40 lakh set apart in the 2016-17 State Budget would be utilised for the State Land Board’s digitisation programme.
The allocation would be used to purchase computers, scanners and other paraphernalia. The National Informatics Centre(NIC) will be developing the software for the digitisation programme,James said.
It is said the digitisation of the land records will limit the scope of the land disputes and help to bring in transparency of the land records.
Meanwhile, the Centre’s Digitisation Programme envisages the computerisation of the land records, including the mutations, digitisation of maps, survey/re-survey and updating all surveys/ settlement records.
The computerisation of registration and integrating it with the land records maintenance system as well as the development of the Geospatial Information System (GIS)are part of its aims.