New Delhi: Looking to buy property in prime New Delhi areas but not sure of ownership details or if the property has changed hands several times?Well, this information will now be just a mouse-click away.
To ensure greater transparency in land ownership records and check fraud, the Modi government is fast-tracking its e-Dharti project, launched by the Land and Development Office (L&DO) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
As part of the project, each and every property in Delhi registered with the L&DO, whether occupied or vacant, is being mapped and the information is being loaded onto the e-Dharti portal.
The project was launched in April, just before the Lok Sabha elections began. Now with elections over, it has picked up pace. The L&DO, which has65,000 properties, plans to complete mapping and validation of all by March 2020.
This is the first time that a land-owning agency in the Capital is mapping each and every land parcel under it, verifying it with its location and details and putting it in the public domain.
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L&DO has most land after DDA
L&DO is the largest landowner in the Capital after the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). Its 65,000 land parcels across Delhi have been allotted to different agencies or private citizens on leasehold. While a majority of its land is in New Delhi and Central Delhi, it also owns sizeable chunks in south Delhi and the Civil Lines area.
Since the launch of the e-Dharti project, so far 42,000 properties have been mapped using Geographical Information System. “Of these, we have validated 8,500 properties so far,” said a senior official of the housing and urban affairs ministry.
“Land-related information, even where the land belonged to the government, was obfuscated till now. In many cases, because the land has changed hands many times and land records were not updated, ownership details are opaque,” the official added. “To bring in transparency in land deals, we decided to map each and every property and individually verify them.”
Once the L&DO validates the land and ownership details, the information is then put in the public domain.
“This will usher in greater transparency in land deals as one will get to know who owns what. It will help enforcement agencies in tracking benami properties as well,” an official in the L&DO said. “Individuals looking to buy property will not only get accurate details of ownership but it will also help the L&DO track where all its properties have been encroached upon.”
In a first, you can get a property card too
Not only will one be able to check land details, but owners can also get property cards of their land with all details online. The property card has all information such as land type, its status, plot area, date of allotment, lessee/allottee detail, if a lease has been cancelled or if the property is under litigation, among others.
At present, only a handful of states such as Maharashtra have a land record website.
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