All districts to be covered under Land Passbook Scheme by 15th August 2022
The Chief Secretary, Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta chaired a meeting to review the functioning of the Revenue Department.
The Financial Commissioner Revenue, Commissioner/Secretary, Revenue Department, Divisional Commissioners of Kashmir and Jammu along with concerned HoDs participated in the meeting.
It was informed that under the Digital India Land Record Modernization Programme (DILRMP), the Revenue Department has scanned 7,75,70,009 documents, 58,754 maps, and 760 Jamabandis. The scanned revenue record has been made available in the public domain under the ‘Apni Zameen Apni Nigrani’ initiative and various public viewing drives are currently underway for promoting public awareness and scrutiny.
Under the Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA), the Department is creating survey infrastructure and GIS maps to reduce revenue-related disputes and court cases. The process also includes sensitization drives, making on-ground boundaries, laying out SOPs, and generation of property cards post-survey completion.
The Chief Secretary directed to digitize all Revenue Land Records of Jammu and Srinagar by 26th January 2022 and of all other districts by 15th August 2022. The Department was further directed to ensure end-to-end digitization of all its processes to provide online facilities to people for applying and receiving copies of revenue records through a web portal, besides ensuring that a copy of every Government order is also available on the departmental website.
Moreover, the Department was asked to integrate all its record on one platform, including land records, registration and attestation of mutations for allowing ease of access to the public. “The one-stop portal must also provide for options to register and track grievances/complaints and information on pending and under-trial cases throughout the revenue courts”, Dr. Mehta maintained.
The Department was further asked to shift all the processes to online mode by adopting the e-office model in its field offices for digitally linking the field functionaries including Patwaris and monitoring timelines of all processes on a real-time basis.
Regarding the encroachment of State and Departmental lands, the Chief Secretary directed the submission of time series data on periodical encroachments showing decadal growth of such encroachments over 1990- 2000-2010-2020; within one month. The enforcement agencies were directed to undertake extensive anti-encroachment drives and start eviction from the high-value commercial areas in the first instance.
The agencies were asked to take immediate action against reported cases of illegal trespassing and prevent further encroachments. Further, it was asked to immediately bio-fence all retrieved land to prevent its further encroachment.
The Chief Secretary directed the Revenue Department to evolve a mechanism of issuing revenue passbooks to the people, containing information on all their legal land possessions within one month, followed by its first trial run on 15th January and formal issuance by 26th January 2022. The process will be completed in the districts of Jammu and Srinagar by 31st March 2022 and in all other districts by 15th August 2022.
Dr. Mehta emphasized the need to connect revenue records with Mobile and Aadhaar numbers of owners as a measure to check benami properties as well as prevent the sale/ encroachment of properties without the knowledge of owners. He asked the Revenue Department to issue SMS alerts to the registered accounts at every stage of the transaction/process to prevent unauthorized land transactions by implementing Real-Time Land Transaction Communication System.
The Department was also asked to obtain legacy data from the High Court and make timely entries in the revenue record with time-bound reconciliation of all records.(GNS)