In a landmark initiative after the scrapping of Article 370 and 35-A in August 2019, the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has been incorporated in the Digital India’s National Generic Document Registration System (NGDRS). Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha triggered the inauguration from the Deputy Commissioner’s office in the summer capital of Srinagar on Friday, 18 September.
The NGDRS represents a major shift from the existing manual system to online registration of all transactions in sale-purchase and transfer of land and the stamp papers have been replaced by e-stamps which have been incorporated in coordination with Stockholding Corporation of India.
J&K is the 10th among 28 States and 8UTs to become part of the NGDRS.
Speaking at the inaugural event, Sinha said that J&K’s incorporation in NGDRS marked the government’s yet another step towards the establishment of an accountable and transparent governing system where the welfare of common citizens was at the core.
The overall intent is to ensure hassle-free service delivery and transparency in the registration process by online uploading of the document, appointment with the registration office, e-stamp, and a one-time visit to the Registration Office. The entire process has been reduced to 15 minutes which would previously take several days in view of multiple steps involved. Now all five steps are under the digital process.
Sinha handed over an endorsement deed and an e-stamp generated through NGDRS to a Srinagar resident marking the launch of the new digital system.
Deputy Commissioner of Srinagar, Dr. Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, briefed the Lieutenant Governor about the progress of Land Record Digitization in the district. He informed that apart from 100 percent updation of Jamabandis and digitization under completion, 558 estates had been digitised and updated on the NGDRS portal. Revenue to the tune of Rs 46 crore has been generated in the district so far and the NGDRS will entail an ease of doing business both for revenue department and land owners and buyers.
In the first phase, apart from District Srinagar, four other districts viz. Jammu, Samba, Kathua and Udhampur have also been included under the NGDRS coverage. The LG directed the officers to launch the system in the rest of the UT before 31 October 2020. He asserted that the launching of the NGDRS was a big step towards national integration and a leap towards ‘One Nation One Software’.
Those who participated in the event included Advisor to the LG, KK Sharma, Chief Secretary, BVR Subrahmanyam, Principal Secretary Revenue Department, Pawan Kotwal and Principal Secretary to the LG, Nitishwar Kumar. Senior officers from Delhi and Pune joined through video conferencing.
Ajay Tirkey, Secretary Department of Land Resources Government of India, discussed key features of the NGDRS and the support to be extended to the J&K Government for further expansion of the scheme. Ajay Joshi, senior Technical Director, NGDRS, SDU NIC-Pune, made a presentation on key features of the NGDRS. Dr DC Mishra, DDG-NIC (Technical Partner), made a presentation of features of software. Pramod Joshi, represented the Stockholding Corporation of India.
Principal Secretary Revenue Department J&K, Pawan Kotwal highlighted the process adopted for establishment of registration offices, capacity building and training of officers, introduction of e-stamping and further course of action for fresh land survey after completion of the on-going updation of revenue records and digitization..
