Land records now available online

Chennai, May 15: State minister for housing and revenue Periasamy on Friday launched e-governance service of land records.    The residence and the house owner can now have access to the documents of land, and download pattas. The website www.eservices.tn.gov.in will have all details such as patta pertaining to lands of individuals. So far, 3.2 crores of land resources having full details of the owners across the state have been registered on this website, the minister told reporters on the sidelines of the three-day regional review conference organised by the land resources department and Union ministry of rural development.

Through global positioning system, four districts including Dindigul, Vellore, Coimbatore and Krishnagiri are under re-survey. The re-survey with the hi-tech equipment would help the authorities register the land details with more accuracy.  The re-survey would be extended to other districts shortly in a phased manner. For executing the project, the state government has sent a detailed project report to the Centre seeking funds to the tune of Rs 50 crore.  The minister also said that Tamil Nadu was spearheading in land reforms. The DMK regime over the last two years has issued five lakh free pattas for the landless poor.

The government is identifying more poramboke lands to benefit the needy, he said. Union rural development secretary Rita Sinha said e-processing would prevent tampering of documents and every individual registering on the website would have a unique identity number.  This kind of e-processing of land resources ‘Torrent system’ had already been implemented in various states and also in other countries, including New Zealand, England, Australia,Thailand and Kenya.

“Initially we had plans to launch it in 11 states across the country. As of now, it has been completed in Karnataka, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and now Tamil Nadu.”  The ministry wants to cover the entire country by the end of the 12th five-year Plan.  The project got delayed in the last few years and currently it is gaining momentum by reviewing the land records and instructing the state government to co-operate with the Union government, she said. The objective of the system would be accuracy and time reduction. Besides tampering of land records could be prevented, Ms Rita Sinha said.

State revenue secretary Ambuj Sharma and senior officers from southern states attended the review meeting. According to Egmore tashildar Mr Ravichandran, the three-day meeting will have sessions on land records modernisation, relief and rehabilitation of public displaced due to developmental activities by the government and proper utilisation of wasteland in urban and rural areas.