 |
|
An additional bonus is a wealth of easily digestible data on irrigation, soil, crops, rights, tenancy and ownership which officials say will help in development planning. The accountants, 9,000 of them in Karnataka, still generate the records, but won’t be able to use the confusing burden of reams and reams of decades-old handwritten papers as cover for corruption. Each accountant covers about four villages. "Sometimes it used to take a week to get a land record copy," 37-year-old farmer Sivanna Dasiah, who bought a certificate to get a bank loan, said. "The village accountant used to demand 50, 100 or even 500 rupees sometimes for one copy." Farmers now happily pay Rs 15 (30 cents) for a printout. The coffee town of Sakleshpur and the rural centre of Maddur led the way with the land-record project earlier this year. Ramanagaram, some 40 km (25 miles) from Bangalore, joined them in pioneering the practice, which Karnataka has now taken to 45 of its 177 talukas, or sub-districts, despite resistance at the local level. Officials, who say the cost is easily recovered from the sale of land record copies, are now frantically training two computer-friendly accountants for every sub-district. The state plans to cover all sub-districts by March next year, and also link the local area networks over the Internet. The idea is to eventually license the database to Internet service providers who can use the data commercially. Chawla, 39, is a computer science graduate from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, but unlike many of his schoolmates who flocked to Silicon Valley, he chose to become a modestly paid career civil servant. He says the project’s challenge was to ensure the records were tamper-proof and the system’s authenticity was not challenged. "A password hacking of land records means I am gone for a toss," he says. A team from the state-run National Informatics Centre, software giant Microsoft Corp, computer maker Compaq Corp and Aditi Technologies Ltd has been helping him devise a solution. The companies worked for free, and the team evolved a fingerprint-based access to the software application in which the land records generated by village accountants are entered. A small fingerprint recognition point is attached to each terminal. This means that password-based hacking is not possible and those who change records will be identified by fingerprints. The computers also store digitally scanned copies of the original paper records approved in handwriting and signed by the accountants. Once this is done, handwritten records are banned. Chawla said this would ensure that in future, all records could be systematically updated and tracked over computers. The computers also help in tracking the status of applications involving change of ownership, which in the past has been a source of red tape and corruption. In the land record shops, villagers have a terminal facing them, where they can watch what officials processing their applications on another terminal are doing. Karnataka’s neighbouring state and
technology competitor, Andhra Pradesh, has launched a similar project. A
plan to transfer land records to computers is due to be finished in
June. — Reuters |
 |
 |
