Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Islooites will have to wait, God knows better how long, to acquire computerised copies of documents related to the sale, purchase and transfer of land as the previous progress on the project has become irrelevant due to continuous delay of over a decade.

In 2006, the project was launched by E-government Directorate of the Ministry of Information Technology to digitise land record of 112 revenue estates under the ambit of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).

As per the PC-I of the project, the whole record was to be converted into digital form while an online system to facilitate the public was also planned, which was supposed to be completed in three years.

The outdated system of manual ‘fard’ – documentary evidence of land ownership – was to be replaced by computerised ‘fard’ and signed by the officer concerned of Land and Revenue Department.

The estimated cost of the project was around Rs 88 million; however, after a delay of almost three years, the system was partially launched in 2012. The computerisation of land record for 44 revenue estates was completed at that stage but only 33 revenue estates went online.

However, the whole practice backfired in 2014, when the city managers found that the software built for the purpose was incompatible with servers provided.

Additional Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) Waqar Cheema while confirming the failure of software prepared to launch online issuance of ‘fard’ said: “Initially, we were not the executing agency for the project, but since 2013 it is under our domain.”

“We had already forwarded a revised PC-1 of Rs 140 million to the Ministry of Interior, which needs an approval from the Central Development Working Party (CDWP),” he said, adding: “The already done digitisation of land record will be useless as changing in the ownership of land occurs frequently with day to day mutations.”

The idea to computerise the land record was a brain child of former prime minister Shaukat Aziz. Under the project, the record of land in Islamabad’s urban area was to be computerised by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and that of rural area by the the ICT administration.

However, sources inside CDA informed Daily Times that the city managers had shelved the project just like the ICT administration and there was no progress on project at all.

“The land computerisation will not only benefit the masses but will also put an end to patwari culture,” an officer of the ICT administration said. “A nexus between patwaris and ruling elite is the main hurdle.”

Published in Daily Times, October 26^th 2017.