Using ICT to manage non-agricultural property : e-SWATHU in Karnataka, India
Samartharam N R & Rajeev Chawla
It is well established fact that usage of ICTs to build e-Governance systems result in bringing transparency and thereby reduce corruption. Government of Karnataka with its technical partner National Informatics Centre, Government of India has built excellent system for managing Land Records administration called BHOOMI. BHOOMI system of Karnataka is an excellent example of sustainable and successful e-Governance project. Though, BHOOMI has digitized 20 million land records pertaining to thirty thousand villages of Karnataka, it covers only agricultural lands. Revenue department which is responsible for managing Record of Rights for all properties as per Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964 manages only agricultural lands thereby ensuing in a situation where in there are no ownership documents for non-agricultural properties. Citizens were forced to use tax register extracts maintained by local bodies to transact the properties in the absence of ownership documents. To streamline the management of properties in villages, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department of Government of Karnataka has come out with project called e-SWATHU to manage non agricultural properties located in the villages electronically. This case study would focus on Conceptualization and implementation of e-SWATHU, Government process reengineering carried out to convert tax account into property records, Key benefits of the e-SWATHU an e-Governance solution for property records management, Major challenges faced and how they were addressed. Paper also discusses the ideal scenario that one should reach to bring orderliness in managing non-agricultural properties in general.
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