ISLAMABAD: If all goes as planned, the land and property record of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) will be digitised in the coming years, as the civic agency’s Development Working Party (DWP) on Wednesday approved PC-I for this project.

The DWP meeting, chaired by CDA Chairman Anwarul Haq, approved the project titled ‘E-empowerment, Property Management System- Digitization of Property and Land Record’ at a cost of Rs172.7 million, expected to be completed within two years.

According to PC-I, a property management system (PMS) will be developed in addition to a portal offering online-based submission, backend processing functionality, and linking existing file records with new records.

“The CDA will be doing sifting, scanning, digitisation of all records and storing them in a secure digital platform and integrating the record with PMS portal,” as per the PC-1.

PC-1 approved for Rs172.7m; 45m documents likely to be digitised

CDA’s Technology and Digitalisation Member Nauman Khalid, who is also the spokesperson of the authority, said that the DWP in principle approved the PC-I of the project. He said that this project was meant to improve the efficiency and transparency in the CDA. “Once this project is completed, there will be a significant improvement in CDA’s working,” he said.

“All files will be just a click away,” he said, adding that almost 45 million property and land documents would be scanned under this project. “There will be an online tracking system for all files and officers would be bound to resolve the issues of the public with [prescribed] timeline(s),” he said.

It is relevant to note here that a number of inquiries are underway in the CDA and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) regarding fraudulent allotments of plots by the CDA’s land directorate.

In many cases, the land affectees (whose land had been acquired by CDA against an alternative piece of land) were allotted plots on the basis of bogus documents and in some cases, they were given double benefits. Similarly, in some cases, fraudulent allotments of agro farms also surfaced in the CDA mainly because of vague land records.

According to officials, the CDA had acquired thousands of acres of land and in many areas, the civic agency’s land was in “adverse possession because of poor record keeping”.

Meanwhile, the citizens suffer from inefficiency or corrupt practices at the CDA. For instance, a file based on bogus documents is sold by the allotee to someone else in the open market. However since the allotment is made on the basis of counterfeit documents, the CDA can term the plot illegal and create problems for the buyers.

However, the digitisation is expected to put an end to this scam. “All files will be digitised and in those cases, where the record is missing, the CDA will reconstruct files before digitising them.”

The citizens have also faced problems due to ‘missing files’, as in several cases, they were told by the land directorate officials that their plot file was untraceable. “Digitisation and technology are solutions to the chronic issue of land records etc. We are going to digitise our all records through this project,” the spokesperson said.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2024