Karnataka plans digital sub-registrar offices

Bengaluru: Karnataka is working on an ambitious plan to introduce digital sub-registrar offices whose operations will be completely paperless and without human interference. 

If and when the conventional sub-registrar offices are replaced with digital ones, all processes will happen electronically end-to-end. This promises to end corruption for which sub-registrar offices have become notorious.

“Digital sub-registrar offices are not tied to any geography. We want to work in this direction,” Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda told DH. 

The Siddaramaiah administration is looking to borrow from digital initiatives of the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh. Deputy Inspector General of Registration (Vigilance) Anmol Jain was sent to Madhya Pradesh to study the system there. 

One top revenue official described Madhya Pradesh’s initiative as “very exciting”. 

Apparently, Madhya Pradesh’s system is such that no physical signatures are required by parties involved in a property transaction. “Documents are digital, template-based. There are no deed writers or lawyers. Documents are generated on a digital platform. Registration happens on a digital platform. Parties can download the documents later,” the official said. 

Right now, citizens in Karnataka can book an appointment to visit the sub-registrar office. “Once inside the office, there are multiple intermediaries at every step,” the official pointed out. 

The Gowda-led revenue department is preparing the ground for the digital drive. 

“We are readying the implementation of remote registration this year,” Gowda said. Under this, property transactions involving a government agency or undertaking will be allowed to present documents electronically without having to visit a sub-registrar’s office. 

The government is also piloting ‘anywhere, anytime registration’ at Tumakuru and Belagavi where people have a choice to register with any sub-registrar there. “This year, we will scale it up to other districts,” Gowda said. 

Further, the government is integrating property databases (e-Swathu for rural and e-Aasthi for urban) with the sub-registrars so that manual or handwritten khatas are not accepted. “We have also enabled digital payments,” Gowda said. “These are pro-people reforms that can prevent frauds.”

GIS-based guidance value

The government is working on a new GIS-based guidance value system. “Right now, sub-registrars can manipulate details of a property’s nature and location. That is why we are unable to fetch the real potential in terms of revenues. Under the new system, values are auto-fetched and auto-calculated,” an official said. 

The GIS-based guidance value system is likely to be piloted in a few wards in Bengaluru and a north Karnataka town.