Land transactions to go online in Karnataka

Five of the 42 sub-registrars in greater Bangalore to start online registration

Documents pertaining to land records of about 1.21 lakh have been ‘corrected'

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Tumkur: Karnataka, which pioneered the digitisation of land records in the country through the Bhoomi platform, initiated the first step towards enabling citizens to conduct the registration process online on Friday.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Bhoomi, the digital repository of agricultural land records, Revenue Minister G. Karunakara Reddy unveiled the synchronisation of the platform with Kaveri, the software platform that enables registration of sale of land in Tumkur.

The automation of the mutation process — the process of tracking the history of the sale of a particular piece of land that is identified by a unique Survey Number — will result in greater transparency and reduce the scope for “discretion by government officials,” Mr. Reddy said. “This is a turning point because it will also eliminate touts and middlemen who currently fleece property buyers,” he added.

Mr. Reddy, who travelled by bus with mediapersons from Bangalore to Tumkur, said starting in mid-August five of the 42 sub-registrars in greater Bangalore area would start the process of online registration.

Mr. Reddy said documents pertaining to land records of about 1.21 lakh have been “corrected” for minor errors in the last two years. “This has been a huge relief for farmers,” he said.

A meeting of department officials and other senior officials of other departments held about two weeks ago discussed the suggestion that a “land audit” be conducted to make an accurate estimate of land required for industrial projects, Mr. Reddy said. “A six-million-tonne steel plant in China requires only about 600 acres, so why should investors need much more here?” he asked. Rajeev Chawla, Secretary, Revenue Department, said about two crore records pertaining to land ownership have been built on the Bhoomi platform.

Shri MN Vidyashankar Principal Secretary e-Governance, Karnataka

Mr MN Vidyashankar Chief Election Officer Karnataka , meeting representatives of Praja, a citizens organisation of Bangalore

The above photo downloaded from the internet represents the way of working of Mr Vidyashankar whch is of being extremely accessible  to both citizens and private sector, understanding their point of view and incorporating their suggestions after due evaluation.

In the past decade, Mr Vidyashankar has served the State Government of Karnataka in some important positions namely Chairman BWSSB, Commissioner BDA, Secretary Medical Education, , Principal Secretary IT BT & ST , Chief Electoral Officer and Principal Secretary e-Governance. In all these positions besides running the regular routine operations of the departments with a high degree of efficiency, he has kept the citizens interests paramount and introduced numerous IT based innovations.

2nd line leadership for successful implementation of e-Governance Projects

In most cases the media highlights the contribution of e-Gov champions at the Secretary or Principal Secretary e-Governance like Shri Rajeev Chawla, Shri MN Vidyashankar. However these officers would be the first to pass on the credit to the team supporting them.   Karnataka Government has been fortunate to have hard working and dedicated 2nd line leadership in the e-Governance department which has led to successful implementation of many e-Governance projects in the State. Some of these notable officers are

Shri DS Ravindran an officer from the Indian Forests Service,  is currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer  of the Centre for e-Governance in the Department of e-Governance. Over the past 3 years he has been responsible for implementing some of the most important e-Governance programs to name a few like the Karnataka State Wide Area Network, e-Procurement, Nemmadi. Prior to his working in the e-Governance Department, Shri DS Ravindran has served in a variety of roles in the Forest department of Karnataka. He has a Phd from University of Wales and was awarded a Gold Medal by IIM Bangalore for topping the Masters program in Public Policy.

Ms. J Sathyawathi an officer of the Karnataka Administrative Service was appointed the first Deputy Secretary of the e-Governance Department of Karnataka which was established in 2004.

Karnataka Government Releases RFP for CSC program in Karnataka

The e-Governance department of the Government of Karnataka has released the tender for establishment of approximately 5000 CSC's in the state. The tender documents have been uploaded in the  Government of Karnataka e-procurement platform. The last date of submission of tender is 17th August.

Village Telecentre program in Karnataka

Nemmadi program in Karnataka

Authors

1.    Shri Rajeev Chawla IAS Secretary e-Governance Government of Karnataka,

2.    Anirban Mukerji – e-Governance Consultant

Published “A journey through three states Common Service Centres Programme (CSC) Review, NeGP, India” for i4D Magazine August 2007 http://i4donline.net/index.asp

“Nemmadi” in Kannada means peace of mind. The Vision of the Nemmadi project is to empower rural citizens, provide direct access of government services to the citizens and bring government services to the doorstep of the citizen.

1. Introduction

Government of Karnataka (GoK) has been a pioneer in leveraging Information technology in easing the lives of both urban and rural citizens. One of the most path breaking of these e-governance applications is Bhoomi that enables “over the counter” delivery of computerized land records to farmers from the 203 taluka (Tehsil) offices of the State. 

While the Bhoomi program tremendously benefited the farmers there was a demand for establishing of delivery centres for land records at the village level itself. The need for decentralization of Bhoomi catalyzed the development of the “Nemmadi program” program of the Government of Karnataka.

The State Government understood that it could not establish and operate computer centres at every village and hence decided to establish these centres in the villages under a Public Private Partnership model. It was also apparent that these village telecentres would not be viable if only land records were delivered from these centres and for viability, other e-governance services also needed to be delivered through these village telecentres.

Delay in Payment of Social Security Pensions by Government of Karnataka

Publication: The Times Of India Bangalore; Date: Jun 19, 2010; Section: Times City; Page: 5 

TREASURY OF ILLS? TROUBLE IN PENSIONERS’ PARADISE Treasury Dept Stinks Pensions Pending For 6 Months Officials Blame Erratic Power Supply Nirmala M Nagaraj | TNN 

Bangalore: The Global Investors’ Meet may have raked in a grand Rs 3 lakh crore (if only on paper) from investors across the globe, but the state of the state treasury department, the repository of wealth and centre of all monetary transactions, is simply poor. 

    A visit to the Bangalore District Urban treasury office at MySugar building on JC Road reveals its true status — old, broken furniture dumped in a corner, torn window curtains, papers and files scattered amid dust and to top it, an unbearable toilet stench. Sadly, state treasury officers work amid these pathetic conditions. With this working environment, it comes as no surprise that it has affected the overall functioning of the government machinery. If local economic requirements are not being met, what will happen to global ones? 

AGED WAIT FOR PENSION 
Something as fundamental as pension has been delayed for more than six months by the inefficient treasury department. Widow pension, old age pension and pension allocated to the physically handicapped are waiting to be disbursed for more than six months now. Officials blame it on the shortage of power supply. “Without power, we can’t operate computers and this has affected data entry and regular disbursal of pension, as well as adding new pension beneficiaries. Because of this, widows’ pension has been delayed but we will pay them arrears from the date of notification of sanctioning pension,” said Lakshmi, a treasury officer. 

Urban Property Ownership Records Project of Government of Karnataka

Urban Property Records Project of Government of Karnataka

View more presentations from Anirban Mukerji.

E-Governance initiatives of Karnataka

Yojana, a magazine published by the Publications division of India , invited Shri Rajeev Chawla to contribute a note on e-Governance projects in Karnataka. Jointly with Shri Chawla, the following note was prepared.

The note describes the various e-Governance projects in Karnataka like Bhoomi, Bangalore One, Nemmadi and a few other departmental initiatives like Khajane ( the treasury computerisation project), Kaveri ( Computerisation of the registration department)

The link to the document is below

E-Governance initiatives of Karnataka