GUJRAT: The Punjab Land Record Authority (PLRA) has completed the computerisation of entire record of all the nine land registration branches of Lahore district.

The record of land mutation and property deeds of the registration branches since 1947 had been computerised to curtail the role of powerful mafias involved in making fake entries in the official data, a senior PLRA officials told Dawn.

Under the project, Lahore district had been divided into nine registration branches working under the land revenue wing of the deputy commissioner’s office, an official said.

He said the scanning of the registration deeds of property mutations in Lahore had been launched by the last PML-N government and most of the work had been completed in 2017-18 .

The official said the Lahore Deputy Commissioner Umar Sher Chatha took up the matter with Senior Member Board of Revenue (SMBR) Baber Hayat Tarrar given a large number of cases registered by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) against the administrative officials involved in making fake entries in the registration branches.

This, he said, prompted the PLRA to expedite the completion of land record computerisation project.

Lahore Additional Deputy Commissioner Touqeer Ilyas Cheema said special counters were being established in all the nine zones of the registration branches in the district where people could get verified computerised copies of their properties.

He said the initiative would help curb the mafias involved in forging the manual record of the registration branches with alleged connivance of the officials, saving the actual owners from lengthy litigation process.

He added it would also save the property owners, seeking verification of documents, from exploitation of the record keepers who, in many cases, were hand in glove with land mafia, helping the swindlers in getting favourable decisions from the courts.

The DC hoped the land record computerisation would help reduce the complaints in regarding frauds in the property ownership documents.

A PLRA spokesman said the officials trained to run the new system would soon be deputed at the dedicated desks of the registration branches.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2021