Delhi government digitises land records to make property sales safe

NEW DELHI: To check fraudulent transactions of properties, eliminate corruption and rule out any delay
in the registration of sale deeds, the Delhi government’s revenue department has started an exercise to
make all land records easily accessible to the general public.
Officials said that digitised records pertaining to different kinds of lands and properties – gram sabha,
enemy, evacuee, custodial, prohibited, and parcels either acquired or marked for acquisition, and booked
properties – have been brought on a central server and integrated with the Delhi Online Registration
Information System (DORIS) portal of the revenue department.

Before going ahead with any property deal, people can now go to the portal and check if the said land or
building has not been marked disputed or “booked” for demolition activity by the Municipal Corporation
of Delhi (MCD) or if it falls in any other prohibited category.
“In case of disputed properties, all details such as address, name of the owner as per the revenue records,
date of the dispute, and its nature – whether it is mortgaged to a bank or involved in a land fraud, or if a
legal or cease and desist notice has been served on it – have been given on the portal,” said a revenue department official

“Since the properties have been categorised as per the sub-registrar offices, people can go to the portal,
click on the area, and even search by entering the locality or the property number to ensure it is not on the
prohibited list,” the official added.
Similarly, in the acquired list of properties, the details of the beneficiary agency, the year and purpose of acquisition, and khasra number and village have been mentioned. The revenue department has so far entered the details of 21,679 disputed, 6,548 acquired and 5,211 gram sabha properties on its portal. Officials said the data of evacuee, enemy and booked properties were still being updated.

Officials said the 22 sub-registrar offices have already been given access to the central server, where the
details of all prohibited properties have been stored. This not only helps sub-registrars determine that the
sale deed of the land or property, which has come to them for registry, is clean and has a proper chain of
ownership, but it will also prevent the seller from running around to get a no-objection certificate (NOC)
from the agency concerned.
“Before registration, the sub-registrar requires some NOCs from different offices on the status of the land,
which takes time and leaves scope for corruption. Now when the information is available online, it will be
the responsibility of the sub-registrar to verify the authenticity of the records before the registry, which
can be done with a click of a mouse. The possibility of a fraudulent land deal would be eliminated,” said
an official.
Interested buyers can also look at the details before buying them.
Another revenue department official said the responsibility to update the records of all prohibited lands
now lies with the area sub-divisional magistrate. The land records have been digitised, and the revenue
department too has the geo-coordinates of all government land available. The government has now
brought the details of all such land to a central server and also uploaded them to its website, said the
official.