Punjab to ensure efficiency, transparency and accountability in Revenue Department: Kangar
Chandigarh, November 28, 2020 (Yes Punjab News)
In a bid to repose people's faith in the State Administration, the Revenue and Rehabilitation Department has taken a slew of measures to ensure far more efficiency, transparency and accountability in its functioning.
Disclosing this here today, the Revenue and Rehabilitation Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar said that these pro-people reforms and IT initiatives under department's work plan 2017-22 would be instrumental in curtailing inordinate delay in the service delivery system and replace the archaic practices by new ones to win over the trust of masses in the official machinery.
The Minister further stated that Revenue Court Management System (RCMS) has been made functional and data related to all the old cases now pending in the revenue courts has been uploaded on the RCMS portal.
Besides, the last Zimni/Interim Orders passed before 31 October, 2020 have also been uploaded. Henceforth, the progress of each case will be recorded online/real time and can be monitored by the litigants and other concerned, said the Minister adding that the institution of new cases will happen online and in real time.
Listing out other benefits of the system, the Minister said that the cause list will be available online for each Revenue Court in Punjab. The RCMS also interacts directly with the Record of Rights and institution of every case and any order which has to be put into effect in the revenue record will get automatically recorded in the remarks column of the Jamabandi.
The Minister further pointed out that the department has also made a provision in the National Generic Document Record System (NGDRS) whereby as and when the registered sale deed is uploaded by the Sub-Registrar Office, copy of the registered deed will automatically go into the inbox of the concerned Patwari. As and when the Patwari enters the mutation on any such deed or makes remarks in the Jamabandi to give effect of the registered deed.
Intimation will be provided to the concerned parties through SMS. Where no action is to be done by the Patwari, he will send the Parcha Yadasht back to the Sub-Registrar with such remarks. This will help the controlling officers in monitoring effectiveness of implementation of Parcha yadasht. A Dash Board to this effect will also be available for all the controlling officers.
Notably, all the registered deeds are being done through National Generic Document Record System (NGDRS) portal. The software which handles the registration of documents was not compatible with the Punjab Land Records software. Thus, the Parcha Yadasht till now was being issued manually and there is no software to track the progress of the Parcha Yadashts.
In order to ensure the monitoring of the progress of mutation online, a provision has now been made in the software to monitor the progress of the mutation from the issuance of Parcha Yadasht, to entering of mutation, to verification by Kanungo and to the decision of Circle Revenue Office (CRO). The progress will be informed to the authorised/concerned persons through SMS, said the Minister.
Meanwhile, ACS (Revenue) Viswajeet Khanna also referred to a provision whereby an application for 'Non Encumbrance Certificate can be submitted by the applicant online. The requisite fee can also be deposited online. In case the applicant wants to deposit fee in cash, the same can be done at the Fard Kendras.
The process of seeking report of Patwari/Kanungo/CRO for the 'Non Encumbrance Certificate' will be online and copy of the certificate can be downloaded by the applicant in online mode. In case the applicant wants hard copy, the same can be fetched from the concerned Sub-Registrar office/CRO. These applications will be monitored through the Revenue Court Management System.
Highlighting another important aspect, the ACS revealed that application for demarcation as of now is being received offline and there is no IT mechanism available for monitoring of the pendency of applications of demarcation.
A software has been put in place whereby the concerned person can submit an application for demarcation online. The fee can deposited online and in case the applicant wants to deposit fee in cash, the application will have to be submitted at the Fard Kendra or with CRO. Henceforth, all the applications for demarcation will become part of RCMS.
The pendency of such applications can be monitored through the RCMS portal. There is a provision in the software whereby the Kanungo will fix the date for demarcation, submit the report of demarcation, inform the concerned and will be able to do all other related activities online. The applicant will be informed at each and every stage through SMS.
Likewise, provisions have now been made to upload all the requisite documents by the Sub Registrar Office (SROs) within two days of registration. As and when the registered document is uploaded by the SRO, it will be available for viewing and downloading to the authorised persons. The telephone numbers provided at the time of registration of the documents will be used to identify the authorised persons.
With the aim to modernize record rooms at sub-tehsil/tehsil sub division/district level and the digitization of record, a project is being taken up by the department to have the record placed in compactors as a first step and a manual is being drafted to digitise this record.
The manual assumes significance as the digitization will be helpful only if retrieval is easy so parameters at which the recent which is of different types is to be retrieved are fixed. Furthermore, a project has been taken up with Punjab Remote Sensing Centre, Ludhiana to get 70000 Musavis in the State digitized, GIS tagged and have a complete ground truthing. The project is envisaged to be completed by June, 2021.
Apart from these pathbreaking initiatives, the department is also coming up with a detailed mechanism to be put in place for creation of the Record of Rights within the Lal Lakir since the Revenue and Rehabilitation Department has been made Nodal Department to accomplish this task.
In order to safeguard the lands from misuse, the department has also evolved measures to prepare registers of properties/lands such as Panchayats lands, Municipal Lands, Nazool Lands, Evacuee Land, WAKF & Dharmarth, owned by the Government or linked to institutions and vested in different Departments, in accordance with the Record of Rights. All the DCs have been directed to compile district wise record in this regard on priority, added the ACS.