BENGALURU: In a push toward digitizing governance, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda on Tuesday launched the digital land mutation system. “This fulfils the government’s vision of taking administration to the people’s doorstep. Mutation cases will now be fully automatic. The new system enables citizens to apply online for khata transfer and receive approval automatically if no objections are raised within the stipulated notice period,’’ Byre Gowda said.
He said there is a stipulated seven-day notice period for registered transactions and a notice period extending to a fortnight for non-registered transactions. He said if no objections are filed, mutation is completed by default on the 8th or 16th day. “Earlier, people had to repeatedly visit government offices and were often at the mercy of officials and touts. That era is over,” he said.
The pilot service was tested for 30 days in Mandya district, and now that the system has been debugged, it will be rolled out across districts. Byre Gowda said, “About 29-30 lakh mutation requests are made every year. From April 1, 2024, to February 20, 2026, 35,11,987 land mutations were completed automatically, and only 5,207 cases saw objections being filed. That translates to 98% of all mutations processed automatically.’’
Experts say the system will end long queues, harassment by touts, and corruption by babus in property record transfers. It is an improvement on earlier automation through the State’s Bhoomi land records software, eliminating the need for physical fingerprint verification by Revenue inspectors. Now, digital signatures complete the process online, saving both citizen and official time.
He appealed to the people to link their Aadhaar with their Pahani land records to strengthen property ownership safeguards and help prevent fraudulent transactions, which will trigger an SMS alert on the owner’s registered mobile number.
If anyone tries to alter ownership fraudulently, the facility will immediately notify the rightful property holder. The minister warned that without Aadhaar linkage, there can be rare instances of fraudulent ownership changes which can go unnoticed.
Revenue Secretary Rajendra Kumar Kataria and and Commissioner Meena Nagaraj coordinated the finer details before and during the launch.