Punjab government set to digitize urban land records

Lahore: The Punjab government has facilitated the provision of secure and rational services to the public through the rural computerized land record system.

According to the spokesman Punjab Land Records Authority (PLRA), the World Bank had offered financial and technical support to the Government of Punjab to computerize urban land records as well.

The PLRA, in the light of its past experience and technical capacity, undertook the preparation of a project to computerize urban land records. After the preparation of the preliminary document by PLRA, the PC-I for project has been prepared with the mutual consultation and consensus of the concerned institutions.

Last week, the federal government's Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved PULSE, a project to computerize civil records of Punjab, and the World Bank board has also approved the project.

The World Bank will provide financial assistance of 150 million dollars for the PULSE project. And for the implementation of the project, a project implementation unit will be formed under the Punjab Land Record Authority under the leadership of the Board of Revenue. Initially, the duration of the project has been fixed for 5 years. Like the rural land records, the urban land records will also be collected from the relevant institutions and computerized and satellite maps will be prepared.

In Punjab though, rural land records have already been computerized; under the project, a newly reformed land record system will be introduced which will be implemented in all institutions across Punjab. In this way, the computerization of all rural and urban land records of Punjab will create an integrated system of land administration.

These reforms will enable the public to access records easily. Moreover, it will also enable the immediate provision of data for most projects of public welfare at the government level, such as city planning and housing, eliminating the possibility of fraud, fake transfers, and cheating in land transactions.

It is pertinent to mention here that due to the digitization of land records in rural areas, the revenue of PLRA was gradually increasing every year.

According to the data obtained by PLRA, computerized land document (Fard), transfer services were provided to about 4 million customers during the fiscal year 2021-22, an increase of 15 percent over the previous year.

Similarly, approximately RS 18.6 billion was collected in the state exchequer in terms of provincial government taxes and service charges through convenient and transparent services of land records.

Moreover, out of the total 2,738,290 land documents released, more than 1.6 million documents were released from land record centers, 500,000 through NADRA, 300,000 from Dehi Marakaz e Mall and the rest from other centers.

Furthermore, out of 1.3 million land transfers, more than 850,000 land record c centers, more than 300,000 dehi markaz e malls and the rest were verified by other centers.