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Thursday March 28, 2024

Punjab to amend rules to streamline land records

LAHOREThe Punjab government has started deliberations on amending rules to streamline working of Local Commission to ensure timely submission of reports on registration of the property related documents to the sub-register office. The Punjab government will consult the legal fraternity about the amendment to the Local Commission rules so that

By Jawwad Rizvi
April 24, 2015
LAHORE
The Punjab government has started deliberations on amending rules to streamline working of Local Commission to ensure timely submission of reports on registration of the property related documents to the sub-register office.
The Punjab government will consult the legal fraternity about the amendment to the Local Commission rules so that no hiccups exist after the amendments.
This was stated by Senior Member Board of Revenue (SMBR) Punjab Nadeem Ashraf at an interactive conference organised to discuss the current status of Land Records Management and Information System (LRMIS), here on Thursday.
Nadeem Ashraf said the Punjab government would allow the stamp vendors to sell stamps worth up to Rs2,000 from the next fiscal year. Currently, they are allowed to sell stamps to the value of up to Rs1,000 only.
To a question about understating the real price of land in stamp for duty evasion, the SMBR said the Punjab government, after a long time, has issued updated land valuation table to minimise this discrepancy. As a result of it, this fiscal year Rs20 billion revenue collection target was set from the sale of stamp papers, he added. “This target will be achieved,” he hoped.
It was highlighted that in Lahore the price of an acre of land is not less than Rs10 million while it was being shown Rs2 million worth in documents, which was causing huge loss to the provincial exchequer.
Nadeem Ashraf said after revising the valuation table of the land in Punjab, this issue will also be overcome. However, he admitted that the government valuation was lower than the market price as the government evolved valuation table while keeping the price fluctuation mechanism of land in view.
About the LRMIS, the SMBR said substantial achievement was made in the ongoing fiscal year as land records centres were established in 143 tehsils, through which 165,000 computerised ‘fard’ were issued, and over one billion rupees were collected through verification of 48,909 land transfers.
He also highlighted the benefits of the project and said due to this project not only the best and transparent services of land record were being provided to the people but ratio of revenue received under the head of tax had also been increased.
Regarding some issues with the LRMIS, Nadeem Ashraf believed that every new system faces implementation issues in the start and similar was the case with the LRMIS. He said major issues were stakeholders of the system itself as they were also part and parcel of the previous system and they face adaptability issues. Others were some technical and procedural issues which were being fixed.
The SMBR said the LRMIS had broken the monopoly of patwaris and helped people dependence on them for getting land record data in Punjab. We are further trying to settle down the patwaris culture once and for all in the province for which lawyers’ support was crucial, he added.
Nadeem Ashraf urged the lawyer community to give recommendations and suggestions to further improve the service delivery under the LRMIS. He believed that if the LRMIS would not introduce hassle-free mutation services, land transfers, and other land record related services, then the real target of the project would not be achieved.
Punjab Planning and Development Chairman and Project Director LRMIS Irfan Elahi, giving a presentation about the project, said efficient, accountable, secure, accurate land record was available through the LRMIS. He said now there was no fear of burning of records as backup of all the land recorded data, entered in the system from any land record centre, is automatically updated at the head office in Lahore.
The LRMIS is also working to start SMS service for the owners of the property who apply for any transfer or any other property related services, acquired by the applicant from the LRMIS.
Other than this, the LRMIS is also directly linked with NADRA database for the biometric verification of the applicants. He said NADRA is also upgrading its data base which will also be helpful in future for the inheritance property issues as family tree would be automatically checked with NADRA.