Gujarat Govt all set to extend e-Zameen project to urban areas

Having tasted success in its e-Zameen project in the rural areas, the Gujarat government is now planning to launch the project in urban areas of the state soon. The project that authenticates sale of immovable property and reduces time for registration of a sale deed was launched in July 2010 as part of its e-governance project.

"We would be switching over to implement the model of e-Zameen for transaction of immovable property in the urban areas too. This IT driven model was so far available for rural areas of the state," Gujarat Chief Secretary A K Joti said. "For extending this model to urban localities, a database is being created through the city centric offices, functioning under the state's revenue department," he said. According to CL Meena, principal secretary, revenue department of Government of Gujarat (GoG), "We had covered almost all the rural areas by March this year. We will now be developing database for the urban areas soon too."

On the other hand, Joti added that the government could do this project due to centrally located database, which has all the data of the holdings of farmers of the state. It is unique, because through it, we have been able to do business process re-engineering. As per the state government estimates, out of total 1-1.2 million, close to 200,000 mutations (a process post execution of a sale deed) for agricultural land take place annually.

The model has reduced time for registration of a sale deed and has also got rid of the middlemen hanging around the offices of block officers.