Goa's land record software wins international award

A land record portal developed by the Goa government has won an international award for making e-governance concepts people-friendly and accessible, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said Tuesday.

Dharnaksh, an e-government project conceived and implemented by the department of settlement and land records, won the Geospatial World Application Excellence award at Holland's Rotterdam last week, beating over 270 nominations from across the globe, he said.

The citation issued by the organisers of the conference, the Geospatial World Forum, describes the Dharnaksh, as a "robust, reliable and people-friendly land records management system". The conference which was held in Rotterdam also had union Communication and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal as one of the key speakers.

"The portal as a following all over the world," Parrikar said, adding that users, many of them non resident Goans had accessed the website from Britain, Canada, UAE, Kuwait, etc.

Dharnaksh enables anyone with a computer and an internet connection to search through all the land records as well as survey numbers as well as see the property in question via satellite imagery by just logging in the corresponding property details.

The details available online also enables land owners to ensure that the land and the title deed and survey records has not been surreptitiously transferred by land sharks.

"We now propose to take forward Dharnaksh to the next level which is digitally signed copies of land records," said R. Mihir Vardhan, director of the state government's settlement and land records department.