Accurate and well maintained land records are of great necessity to a smooth functioning economic system. It enables faith in the transaction and a larger number of people can participate in land related transactions. A study report by Mckinsey indicates that distortions in India’s land markets are a major barrier to economic expansion (‘India: The Growth Imperative – Understanding the Barriers to Rapid Growth and Employment Creation’, Mckinsey Global Institute, 2001).
A well maintained system of property ownership records is important to citizens as it gives the citizen assurance and security that his property possessed through a lifetime of savings will not be appropriated through flimsy grounds. A well developed property record system also improves liquidity in the system and increases transactions and thus enables the property owner to monetize his asset in times of need. Majority of the civil and criminal cases piled up in all the different levels of courts are related to land disputes. Thus a property record system will reduce costly and time consuming judicial disputes. The citizen is willing to pay for improved service. Creation of property ownership records for urban areas is more essential in the present situation – as the urbanization is faster compared to earlier decades. The cost of a small piece of land of a city is equivalent to several acres of land in a village. As a result of increasing demand for possessing a property in urban area, the land disputes, creation of fake documents and bogus transactions are increasing. The public feel insecure to invest their life savings in properties. Banks, which fund loans on properties, have also lost heavily due to the prevalent faulty system. In this background, the property documents created by a statutory authority will solve many of the land related problems existing in the society. Thus, creation of a robust urban property records system, which is both the sovereign responsibility of the state as well as a citizen friendly measure, will significantly improve the economy of the state.
The department of Revenue Department has been mandated under the KLR Act 1964 and KLR Rules 1966, for preparing, maintaining and preserving spatial and non-spatial data relating to ownership of land for Urban Properties. The specific sections of the KLR Act 1964 are:
There are two distinct responsibilities of Revenue Department in case of urban properties:
The Revenue department has been undertaking city survey for the last 90 years, first under the Bombay Revenue Act and then under the Karnataka Land Revenue Act. The department of Revenue has realized the importance of urban land records for which it is the custodian of both cadastral data as well as record of rights. In 48 towns and cities of Karnataka, there exist City Survey offices that maintain the urban property records. The records are maintained in the form of maps and sketches depicting boundary and extent of individual properties and textual records relating to ownership, land use and other land related particulars. However these records are created using conventional survey equipments which does not provide the accuracy required in the present day, and are prepared maintained in a manual paper based system. The City Survey which is existing in 48 cities/towns also suffers from incompleteness, due to the non-coverage of the area within its jurisdictions, which has developed after the city survey was done few decades back.
The major reasons for the department not expanding city survey all across the state was due to:
Further, the non expansion of the Urban Property records system was also owing to the time consuming work of physical survey of the property. Therefore, leveraging modern technologies and techniques of survey will lead not only to creation of a robust property framework but will also reduce the time of creation of property records. The department proposes to use these modern technology and tools in the creation of Urban Property Ownership Records.
The Municipalities have been maintaining property tax data of the various properties in their city and these property tax records are called “Khatha”. The ‘khatha’ document is presumed as the property ownership record. But Urban Local Bodies do not have mandate to create and maintain Property Records. They maintain “Khatha” only for the purpose of tax collection from citizens and it is not a Record of Rights.
It is to be noted here that the citizens are paying the charges to the Municipalities even though these records or entries do not have any legal value, whereas the Revenue Department issues a Property Ownership Records along with boundaries after a detailed enquiry process like in RTC, and such records have validity under the law. Several court rulings have emphasized that “khatha” cannot be construed as ownership document. In the absence of Property Register Card – prepared after following the due process of KLR Act/Rules - the “khatha” or the sale deed itself has assumed misplaced importance. It has to be noted that the sale deeds are only documents which records the process of transfer of a property from one person to the other. The Sub-Registrars do not verify or attest whether seller had a clear title over the property that he is selling. The registration of a document in a Sub-Registrars office, only authenticates the transaction between two persons, and does not guarantee the genuineness of ownership of the property.
The following points are also to be noted:
The Department has taken the initiative to update and create property ownership records of all properties in the State and plans to create a framework for management of these records. The department has taken up the implementation of the Urban Property Ownership Records (UPOR) Project, on a pilot basis in the five towns of Mangalore, Bellary, Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad, Shimoga in a Public Private Partnership mode. The project has got the approval of the 12th Finance Commission Committee chaired by Additional chief Secretary and also the approval of the Empowered Committee on e-governance chaired by the Chief Secretary – which is considered as equivalent to the approval of the Cabinet.
The UPOR project is being implemented by two types of vendors:
Vendors selection – Service Providers (SP):
Vide Tender Notification dated: 25th September 2009 bids were called for selection of Service Providers – for carrying out the survey work; creation and maintenance of the records - for the UPOR project. The Technical Bids of 4 bidders viz consortium of Navayuga Infotech Pvt. Ltd / MapWorld Technologies Ltd; consortium of Infotech Geospatial (India) Ltd / HCL Infosystems Ltd; CMS Computers Ltd / Navayuga Spatial Technologies Pvt and Secon Pvt Ltd were evaluated. The Technical Bids of all four bidders were qualified and their commercial bids were evaluated. Based on the Commercial bids the following bidders were chosen as the Service Providers:
The DDLRs of the 5 locations were made the Project Officers who would be in charge of the projects at the local level. Their roles and responsibilities were:
Apart from the DDLRs, 30 surveyors were identified in each of the location. The surveyors are required to accompany the vendors and monitor and guide them at all the stages, as this is a highly domain specific project .
In total 150 surveyors and 5 DDLRs were imparted training at Survey Training Institute at Mysore for a month. The team of PMU officers from the Commissionerate imparted the training. The training covered all the important aspects of the first and second stage of the UPOR project (the departmental officers are quite well versed in the third stage of title enquiry). For each of the sub activities in each of the stage theoretical and practical training was given to the government surveyors, so that they would be in a better position to guide the vendors. The practical training involved a pilot of about 3000 properties in Mysore city by the trained government surveyors. This on the job training enhanced the technical skills of the surveyors and it was also a morale boosting effort. The suppliers of the DGPS & ETS imparted training on the use of the equipments both to the government officials and to the vendors. At the end of the training the officers and the surveyors have become well equipped to monitor the work of the Service Provider.
The City Survey work is being carried out in three stages:
Activities involved in the first stage:
Establishment of Primary Control Point (PCP) network:
Locating the PCPs established by Survey of India.
Calculating the required number of PCPs that fall within the area of interest .
Establishment of Secondary Control Point (SCP) network:
Establishment of Tertiary Contol Point (TCP) network:
Activities involved in the second stage:
Activities involved in the third stage:
Enquiry into the ownership of the property based on the data collected/created during the first and second stage
The project is under implementation in all the 5 towns. The entire project is scheduled for 270 days, which appears to be a very stiff timeline. As the project is the first of its kind, for both the vendors and the department, understanding of the project took some time and it is now headed on the right path. The work in Mysore and Shimoga is under progress and will be completed in the next 3 months. Work in Mangalore is hindered due to rains. In Hubli-Dharwad there is a little delay but work is under progress. The work in Bellary is far from satisfactory.
Technical Service Provider (TSP):
In response to this office RFP for the selection of Technical Service Provider, 5 vendors submitted their bids on 13-11-09. The bidders are:
The Tender Scrutiny Committee constituted by the Government, qualified 4 of the above bidders. Out of the above 5 bidders, M/s. Mindtree Ltd did not qualify. The technical bids of the 4 bidders were opened, and all 4 were technically qualified. The Commercial bids of the 4 vendors were opened and the quote of M/s. Infotech Enterprises Ltd., being the lowest, approval of the Government was sought for awarding order. Government vide letter No. RD 77 MRR 2009 dated 04-12-2009, has conveyed its approval and informed Revenue Department, to place Purchase Order on them. As part of scope of work of the TSP,
The hardware and other IT infrastructure have been procured as proposed by them. The hardware and other components have been delivered at the Data Centre and are installed. The hardware and other components to be installed at the Disaster Recovery Centre have also been delivered at the Department.
The TSP has developed required software.