Come March 2017, every land owner in Maharashtra, can obtain a digital copy of the land-title document, popularly known as 7/12 utara/extract. It would be like income tax returns, which are now digitally signed and issued.
“The land title document (7/12 extract) in one’s name, is very important and it is widely used in rural and semi-rural areas, for identifying owners, for sanctioning of agriculture and non-agricultural loans, etc. These documents will be available (in digital format) from March end,” state revenue minister, Chandrakant Patil said.
See also: Complete digitisation of revenue records by December 31: Maharashtra revenue minister
Earlier, only paper copies of land title documents were issued, which led to bribery and land disputes. The government had also suffered, in terms of serious delays in infrastructure projects and escalation of costs, due to disputes over land titles. To avoid this, the state government, on the directive of the union government, embarked on digitisation of land-related documents. The idea is to offer security to the land records and avoid manual interference, said a senior revenue officer.
Lakhs of land titles are currently being digitised and verified. The government is also training its staff for using the new system efficiently, the minister said.
