M. M. ALAM

KARACHI: Sindh Government, as a result of its revolutionary measures, is at the verge of completing computerization of land records in this Metropolis as well as the Province of Sindh. This has eliminated the racket of fake records to a great extent.

Furthermore, it has been decided that Sindh Smart Cards bearing NIC Card Number, Finger Prints and Photo will soon be introduced.  This is aimed at containing rampant corruption involving billions of rupees in the land-related dealings. Moreover, Sindh Smart Card will facilitate acquisition of bank loans.

Following the instructions of Supreme Court of Pakistan and CM Sindh, reforms are being carried out in the Revenue Department, particularly the aforementioned computerization.

According to details provincial government has computerized 90,00,000 owners of one and a half crore acres of land. 95 percent urban land has also been electronically documented.

This record could be viewed on the website of Board of Revenue. In order to acquire copy of a plot from the record, people can contact District Head Quarters’ Service Centre located in the premises of the Deputy Commissioners’ office boundaries.  Some 13000 people have benefitted from this service in the last six months.

Besides the public, Computerized Records are also benefiting NAB, Anti-Corruption Establishment, and forest departments etc. Sources privy to the NewsPakistan.TV   have revealed that in Karachi 6, 25,000 acres of land have been thoroughly surveyed by means of cutting-edge technology.

This has eliminated the obsolete technique of marking the boundaries with rocks or blocks.  Maps thus prepared have been provided to all the DC offices.

Sources here have further revealed that subordinate staff is avoiding this method because once documented the data later can’t be changed.

Office of the Survey Superintendent Karachi has also been provided the latest equipment. Now all the land surveys are being carried-out by means of these machines.

According to sources in order to contain alterations in the land records, dubious schemes of land mafia, to stop corruption of billions of rupees and to eliminate the menace of  encroachment Board of Revenue boasts of having GIS technology.

Thanks to this, one can trace up to 20-year-old history of the status of a piece of land.

Maps prepared with the help of this technology are also being provided to Supreme Court, NAB, Armed forces of Pakistan, Statistics Division, Anti-Encroachment, Election Commission and other vital organizations.

According to sources Sindh’s 70 percent registration work is carried out in Karachi where latest scanning system has been introduced, due to which registries are now available online.

NewsPakistan.TV has been told by reliable authorities that microfilm rolls of registries are also being computerized. As soon as this process is complete some 45, 00,000 registries would be available online. To further facilitate public calculate stamp duties etc. online calculators have been introduced.

It will be possible, by means of aforementioned measures taken by the Board of Revenue, to contain the menace of  fake records & corruption related to land.