Mardan Land Record Digitization in Disarray

Manzoor Hussain

Mardan: Envisaged as a good initiative by the KP government to digitize the land records of the province, the lack of trained staff at the Revenue Department has led to 16,900 errors in the land records, much to the annoyance of people, according to the relevant authorities in Mardan.

The errors came to light when Manzoor Hussain, a resident, received the requested records under the Right to Information Act from the concerned department.

The plan to computerise land records in Mardan was to ease access for people but instead, the implementation has been nothing short of a hassle Hussain told Penpk.com, “When we investigated the record, we found ambiguities and errors. When we asked the officials in the revenue department, they could not give any logical explanation.

Whether they were computer-generated errors or the fault of ‘Patwari’ (revenue officer), no one in the department could give information as to the exact cause of the errors.”

Due to errors in land records, citizens are irked at having to make repeated visits to the concerned authorities to have the errors corrected. There appear to be no checks and balances to ensure the accuracy of the records, according to an anonymous source at the revenue department. Also, the department has received many complaints about missing land records in the computerized datasheet.

It is pertinent to mention here that former prime minister Imran Khan inaugurated the digitalization of land in KP in 2015. However, the progress has been cumbersome.

Citizens are also agitated by the complicated system and heavy taxes imposed by the KP government over the land record.

The sources at the revenue department in Mardan said that as much as Rs984 million has been received so far in terms of transfers of documents. There is no information on the number of entries missed.

The Service Delivery Center is inundated with inquiries about the entries of records. These mishaps have become a chicken that lays golden eggs for the Touts and the SDC officials.

The district administration has arrested several touts. The district administration seems to have grossly failed to eradicate corruption from SDC through touts.