Using technology to end corruption
Getting revenue extracts from the government officials has always been a daunting task for the people here. The reasons have been many but the major concern for the people remained the over dependence on the revenue officials to provide them the details.
The revenue extracts are not only provided shabbily but the entire record remains with the officials at the lower level who end up exploiting the people besides giving rise to unnecessary corruption and bad practices.
However, all this could be checked and managed in a professional way if the entire revenue records are digitized and kept available to use at the click of a button. For this the government has initiated a process and is close to finalize Request for Proposal (RFP) for digitization of the land records under Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP).
The DILRMP is an ambitious Project to provide digital land titling guarantee to the land holders of Jammu and Kashmir. The Project includes Data Entry/Re-Entry/Conversion of all textual Records, Digitization (Vectorisation) of Cadastral Maps, (Mussavis), Survey/re-survey with the usage of CORS Net based methodology for updation of Land Records, integration with Record of Rights (RoR), together with Training and Capacity Building of the Revenue staff.
The project needs immediate sanctioning as lot of discrepancies have cropped up in the revenue records due to the act that some officials have misused or exploited the situation in their favor owing to the haphazard manner of maintaining the revenue records.
Notably, the government has already formulated Jammu and Kashmir Land Record Management Agency (JaKLaRMA) headed by Financial Commissioner, Revenue and has tasked the body to approve the work of digitization of Land Records for the entire UT of J&K.
However, the agency needs to tread the path on professional lines and allow only those companies to participate in the process which have ample experience of carrying out the work in other states.
Though for ensuring that the Project is completed in a time bound manner, proposals for outsourcing the entire work to competent and experienced IT and GIS companies have been invited. But the pace of work and the procedures involved need to be monitored efficiently so that the job is done with precision and following all norms of professional standards.
Maintaining land records have been proving a tough challenge for the government as well as the haphazard way to maintaining it has led to various land grabs and scams. The non-availability of information on land records at times was the main reason for such a mess and this needed to be cleared at an earliest.
KV Network
