Bengaluru's BBMP to make ‘digitised’ property record public in March

Bengaluru: For the first time, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has undertaken the critical task of digitising property records, specifically ‘A’ and ‘B’ khata certificates, all in one go.

Since this new endeavour involves entering key details of private properties into the BBMP’s recently developed software, the civic body has decided to make the ‘digitised property records’ available to the public for raising objections once the entire process is complete.

What the civic body aims to achieve in the next three months is similar to the Revenue Department’s Bhoomi project, which digitised the manual Record of Rights, Tenancy, and Crops (RTC) nearly two decades ago.

In the case of the BBMP, this undertaking involves scanning and digitising as many as 5,100 handwritten registers, containing khata details for over 20 lakh properties. This task is extensive, with each property register featuring up to 25 columns for each khata (or property), including information such as the owner’s name, property type, location, and more.

The entire process of entering property details into the software will be outsourced to a private agency.

Multiple concerns arise

As the entire digitisation process is expected to occur within the BBMP offices across its eight zones, some citizens have expressed a desire to understand the technology used and the procedures followed.

The first concern is the potential for manipulating the software to alter khata records. The second worry is the absence of involvement of property owners whose records are being digitised.

“While digitisation can help in searching records, saving space and analysing data easily, it also has several disadvantages,” Rajan R, a resident of Girinath and an open data activist told DH. “The software needs to have audit logs for recording a trail of changes within the system to detect tampering. It it is important to identify each property record by a tag number. If not, the entire exercise will be equal to garbage.”

During the conversation, he suggested that the BBMP should make the entire process public so that property owners can raise objections if the data entered into the system is incorrect.

Rajan, with a background in law and information technology, explained, “Given that land records are highly sensitive, the BBMP cannot afford to make errors.”

Munish Moudgil, Special Commissioner (Revenue), BBMP, confirmed that the civic body is ready to make khata details public once the digitisation process is completed. “We hope to complete the work by March next year. During this period, 100% of the digitised data will be proofread by officers at different levels. On top of this, the property owners, too, will be given a certain period of time to raise objections,” Moudgil said.

He emphasised the critical nature of this exercise, as the BBMP strives
to offer all khata-related services online.