HYDERABAD, Nov 18: Sindh Minister for Revenue Dr. Irfan Gul Magsi said on Saturday that the ministry was planning to get the land surveyed through a satellite to curb chances of manipulation and fabrication in the record.

Addressing a press conference at the Board of Revenue office here after attending a briefing by Senior Member Board of Revenue Syed Anwar Hyder and other officials he said that the land’s satellite imagery would take little time and would be precise.

"We’ve decided to get the land’s survey conducted through satellite and computerise the record," he said, adding that the survey would be conducted by an information technology officer.

He said that the department had selected Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur, Larkana and Khairpur for computerisation. The Sindh government had funded the process, he said. The computerisation of record on agriculture income tax was insufficient, he said, and announced that the department would soon launch its website.

Mr Magsi said that Sindh revenue department contributed around Rs6.5 billion to the province’s exchequer, almost fifty per cent of total, of which it generated Rs13 billion and Rs6.5 billion from stamp duties, Rs700 million from registration and Rs1 billion from other fees.

He expressed his shock over fake entries of 150,000 acres of land in just eight dehs of Karachi, Thatta and Jamshoro districts. The price of land in the dehs located along Super Highway ran into billions and the department came to about the fraud when Senior Member Board of Revenue checked their record at random.

He said that the cases of fraud were being sent to concerned EDOs of revenue for further processing and then they would be referred to anti-corruption establishment (ACE) department.