In what appears to be the result of a lack of coordination, the registration of property documents coming under panchayat limits across Karnataka has been disrupted since Monday.
The registration of documents through KAVERI e-Swathu has been stopped following the migration to a new secure platform by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Department. “Migration happened without the knowledge of the Stamps and Registration Department, resulting in the disruption. As on Tuesday, the matter has remained unresolved,” a Revenue Department source told The Hindu.
Properties coming under panchayat limits are registered through an integration of KAVERI and e-Swathu software. In Bengaluru, many areas outside BBMP limits that are witnessing rapid development in real estate come under panchayat limits. About 30% of the documents registered across the State are through e-Swathu.
“There is no information to the public about the inability to register properties. Sub-registrars themselves do not know the problem. It has affected many people,” K. Ramesh, a property consultant in the city, said.
It is learnt that the disruption was caused as the RDPR Department changed the URL from HTTP to the more secure HTTPS, but without informing the other stakeholders, including the National Informatics Centre and the Stamps and Registration Department. Furthermore, as the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, which developed the KAVERI software, tested the integration with e-Swathu on the HTTPS URL, it found that the KAVERI software was unable to support it for technical reasons.
Safety aspect
On its part, the RDPR Department has justified the move, saying it was done to increase safety. It has also pointed out that the Karnataka State Data Centre had given multiple reminders to do so. Panchayat Raj Commissioner Priyanka Mary Francis said there was no problem and certain internal issues were being sorted out by the State data centre.
“No decision on how to move forward has been taken. People suffer from such lack of coordination. There was no intimation to the IGR office about the deadline to migrate to the HTTPS URL,” a revenue official rued.
Meanwhile, Revenue Department sources said that the Stamps of Registration Department has urged the RDPR Department to temporarily restore the HTTP URL to prevent causing more inconvenience to the public.
Panchayat Raj Principal Secretary Uma Mahadevan said that the e-Governance Department has been asked to look into the matter. “They are at it. We will wait to hear from them about what the issue is. We will sort it out soon,” she said.
Efforts to reach out to the Inspector General of Registration, K.P. Mohan Raj, and CEO of the Centre for e-Governance, Vipin Singh, for their response were in vain.
