Owners can now link Aadhaar with patta in Tamil Nadu
CHENNAI: To stop land grabbing and bring in more transparency in land deals, the revenue department of Tamil Nadu has decided to give landowners the option to link their Aadhaar numbers with their patta documents. Owners can exercise an Aadhaar authentication option, to be rolled out soon, while executing land transactions.
The new initiative is aimed at enhancing the security of land dealings and deterring misuse of documents, P Madhusudhan Reddy, director of survey and settlement, said. Currently, there is a possibility of impersonation where a person with the same name falsely presents himself as the legitimate landowner to execute transactions.
“By linking Aadhaar with the computerised land record, such incidents could be prevented and it can be ensured that only genuine owners execute the transactions,” Madhusudhan said. TN issued the order after the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) approved the state government’s proposal.
‘Move will help reduce crimes related to land’
The citizen service portal https:// eservices.tn.gov.in/eservicesnew/ index.html# will soon have an option for land owners to link their Aadhaar number with the computerised land records. “After landowners update their Aadhaar, VAOs will conduct field verification of the property and upon validation, the linkage will be approved. The land service portal is getting ready for the launch of Aadhaar seeding,” Madhusudhan said. The new initiative aligns with the regulations outlined in the Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Rules of 2020.
The rules permit the use of Aadhaar for offering better service and enhancing the overall quality of life of individuals. “The Aadhaar seeding exercise will exclusively cover land parcels owned by individuals. Land holdings registered under company names cannot be linked to Aadhaar. We are currently exploring the possibility of introducing a unique identification number for such properties. Also, government lands will not be covered under the initiative”
Madhusudhan said. Since 2019, the Aadhaar numbers of both buyers and sellers have been documented during land registration in the state. The practice has been met with minimal opposition from landowners, with only a few expressing reluctance. An official from the state registration department said, “Currently, we collect Aadhaar from both the seller and the buyer, but we don’t carry out authentication. Given the rising number of complaints regarding land grabbing, implementing such a measure would help reduce land-related crimes.”
At present, the state has patta documents for various categories such as agriculture, town and village surveys, and grama natham lands. A total of 4.49 crore documents for land parcels falling under agriculture and town and village surveys have been provided with computerised pattas. But approximately 1.44 crore records of grama natham pattas have not been computerised yet and the work is underway, sources said.