TAXILA: The Punjab Land Record Authority (PLRA) will open 115 new land record centres across the province at a cost of Rs2.19 billion, Provincial Minister for Revenue retired Col Malik Mohammad Anwar said on Thursday.

Speaking before the press in Attock, Mr Khan said eight new centres will be opened in Attock district to address the growing needs of the farming and business communities in Chhab, Khaur, Domel, Mallal, Bhattar, Fatehjang, Tajak and Sarwala.

He said the centres are expected to be complete by the end of January 2020. The new centres aim to provide prompt and easy access to land records and facilitate the issuance of fard, ownership and mutation documents, he said.

He added that they would create job opportunities, as more than a thousand service centre officials will be recruited to run them.

The minister said the Punjab government has approved 1,135 posts, “including 135 land record officers, 135 assistant service centre in-charges, 500 service centre offices – also known as digital patwaris, and 335 class four employees.”

Mr Khan said there are 152 land record centres currently working at the tehsil level across Punjab. He said establishing many of these centres would reduce the burden on existing ones, particularly when it comes to revenue department issues such as issuing ownership and mutation documents, while allowing the public to have land problems addressed at their doorstep.

If there is no state land available, the centres will be established in government buildings, he said.

Responding to a question, Mr Khan said there would no tolerance for corruption and the staff of the PLRA has been warned in this regard. He said the PLRA collected Rs1.44bn in the 2017-18 financial year.

He added that the Punjab government plans to computerise urban land records, as only the records of rural areas have been computerised and records of agricultural rural land were already being maintained by the PLRA through tehsil-level Arazi Record Centres.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2019