JOIN USe-project to eliminate land scams
The project is aimed at eradicating multiple ownership and bogus property owners. In its first phase, the project will focus on five towns - Bellary, Mysore, Mangalore, Shimoga and Hubli-Dharwad. However, Bangalore has been excluded from the first phase due to the vast number of properties in the City.
“We have taken up the project in smaller towns, since it is easier to implement there and also gives us an opportunity to assess before its implementation in Bangalore,” Rajeev Chawla, Director for Survey Settlement and Land Records Department reasoned.
The Department has assessed seven to eight lakh properties in the five towns, compared to 40 lakh properties identified in Bangalore. “We expect the properties to cross 10 lakh in these five towns once the detailed survey is completed by the agencies,” said Chawla. Launching the project, Revenue Minister, G Karunakara Reddy hoped that vendors and the department officials will identify land encroachments with this detailed survey and return the land to their rightful owners.
In 20 more cities next year
Reddy assured that the project will be taken to 15 to 20 more cities in the following year to get the property ownership online. The project, expected to roll out its services from September 2010, is being undertaken as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). Accordingly, the State government has shortlisted nine companies for the first phase (box).
Besides, the State government has hired Infotech Enterprises Ltd, Hyderabad, as the Technical Service Provider for the project. The Revenue Department will be overseeing the implementation of this project and has already placed a work force of 140 people in the five cities. The UPOP is estimated to cost Rs 40 crore for implementation across all the five cities. However, the Government will only shell out Rs 8 crore for the project as capital investment. The remaining Rs 32 crore will be invested by the vendors, who are expected to make the revenue from the users who subscribe to the database prepared by them.
According to the Revenue Department officials, the services will be on the same lines as that of Bangalore One centres. “We will be initially starting with our own services related to property ownership. In future we may also open our centres to include other services like property tax collections for the local municipalities and even the KPTCL,”said a Revenue official.
Bank loans to be included in the UPOP
The Revenue Department will also be incorporating bank loans on property ownership under its UPOP. “We have had requests from Banks to include the existing bank loans on properties in the cities. This will help the banks and the citizens to identify those properties that are genuine in the Cities without any loans on it,” said Chawla.
Citizen Data Hubs
At the launch event, Principal Secretary for e-Governance, M N Vidyashankar said that the Citizen Data Hub has already taken off with more than 13 companies showing interest in the project. The final valuation and company to undertake the project will be done in February. “We will be covering 10 blocks, 219 towns and 176 taluks in the State under the Citizen Data Hub,” said Vidyashankar.
Companies shortlisted for the project
Navayuga Infotech Pvt Ltd Bellary
Map World Technologies Ltd
CMS Computers Ltd Hubli-Dharwad
Navayuga Spatial Technologies Pvt Ltd
Secon Pvt Ltd Mysore
CMS Computers Ltd
Navayuga Technologies Mangalore
Infotech Geospatial
HCL Systems Shimoga
Estimated properties in each city
*Bellary: 75,000
*Hubli-Dharwad: 70,000
*Mangalore: 2 lakh
*Mysore: 2.1 lakh
*Shimoga: 1.5 lakh
Revenue Department service centres
*Hubli-Dharwad: 3
*Mysore: 2
*Mangalore: 2
*Bellary: 1
nShimoga: 1