THE computerisation of land records in Punjab and Sindh promises an end to infamous patwari culture — a drag on modernisation of farming — but not without a backlash from well-entrenched interest.

There was some resistance by patwaris while computerisation was in progress. The problem is that land records being fed into computers are provided by patwaris. According to deputy director of Punjab’s Land Record Management Information System (LRMIS) more than 4.7m errors in land documentation were found during the computerisation process which was obviously the work of patwaris concerned.

A farmers’ oganisation complained that the computerised land record in all 143 tehsils of Punjab is full of errors and wrong entries that, if not rectified, may open up Pandora’s box of litigations.

The Sindh Board of Revenue has digitised the revenue record of 29 districts, while properties in 2,300 villages out of 2,500 in Punjab have been brought online under the LRMIS

It took 8,000 patwaris to keep land records in Punjab. The job is now being done by 3,000 officials at service centres across the province. He said the LRMIS carried records of land owned by 20m people. An online monitoring dashboard system has been introduced to keep a check on officials handling these records.

A senior member of the Sindh Board of Revenue (BoR) during a presentation said that the 90pc land record entered into computer had serious flaws which were rectified by adopting a proper procedure. Giving examples, he said that 35pc flaws were found in the division of shares, 30pc had no survey numbers, 3pc had errors of calculation, 1pc lacked entries of sellers and buyers and 2pc entries were made without attestation.

The data shows that 78pc of total entries are those of small farmers who own less than four acres. Being illiterate, these farmers are not familiar with benefits of land record computerisation, and have mostly been depending on patwaris for any sale or purchase of land.

India’s experience in states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka is a case in point. It shows computerisation has led to increased corruption and further lack of access to records to poor farmers and women due to problems like illiteracy, lack of awareness, and the need to travel to service centres located far away from their villages. The system of maintaining manual land records is no doubt outdated and distorted, but computerising them has yet to become the right solution to end corruption and irregularities.

An International Crisis Group report on Pakistan’s civil service accuses the officials of provincial revenue departments of lacking the will to curtail powers of the patwari for they “themselves are corrupt to the core”.

In fact, it was the patwari, the report says, who engineered the failure of Z.A. Bhutto’s 1973 land reforms. In most cases, at the behest of big landlords, he never informed tenants about the reforms and a subsequent change in their status. And the peasants continued to work on their fields as before, without knowing they had become the owners of their farms.

The Sindh Board of Revenue has digitised the revenue record of 29 districts, while properties in 2,300 villages out of 2,500 in Punjab have been brought online under the LRMIS.

A ceremony was held in Karachi on April 12 to mark the completion of digitisation of the records. It was also attended by the Sindh chief minister who jokingly hoped the patwaris would not go on strike in protest against the new system for it takes away from them their invisible powers to tamper with the land records.

Pakistan has been much behind in adopting the digital technology in South Asia. It initiated the online transfer of land records in 2007 with a World Bank-aided project in Punjab where tampering with records was extremely high.

India began computerising its land records in 1988. On April 15, it achieved another feat by launching its first electronic trading portal to enable farmers to sell their goods across the country.

The portal named ‘The National Agriculture Market’ (exam) would allow farmers to monitor the cost of commodities, assess demand and gain easier access to markets in the country.

Instead of assuming that computerisation of land records will deliver positive benefits to the weaker sections, the policymakers need to ensure authenticity of existing land records, so that poor tenants and women were no longer cheated.

In fact, what is needed is using online records to tax large landholders and even undertake effective land redistribution. However, it seems they will remain the primary beneficiary of the new system as well as they were in the previous system.

The patwari culture has flourished because of effective support of local influential persons and lawmakers who use their powers to manage the posting of patwaris of their choice who then manipulate land records to their benefit. As such, the patwari culture is a part of the political system gradually losing its dominant position.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, April 25th, 2016