AN official move is afoot to set up a federal land registration authority (FLRA) to function more like the National Data-base Registration Authority in respect of land-ownership.

The FLRA is to have its officers at the Centre and in the provinces, districts and tehsils.

Under the proposal made by the State Bank to the Prime Minister, the revenue collected by it will be shared among the provinces.

While the data-collecting function of the FLRA may not be controversial politically, the revenue-sharing proposal can lead to some controversy, more like sharing the federally-collected revenues through the National Finance Commission formula.

The suggestion of the SBP governor Dr Ishrat Hussain also comes at a time when the land grabbing scam is making banner headlines and the chief minister of Sindh and his dismissed revenue minister are locked horns accusing each other of massive illegal land transfers using fake or duplicate documents. and the prime minister’s call for a cease-fire between them is not proving effective.

This is also the time people from outside Balochistan are trying to buy land around Gwadar at a high prices and wondering whether they are the buying from the rightful owners? So the anxiety to buy more land goes hand in hand with the fear that they may not be paying the rightful owner and can be duped by the over-zealous brokers.

A centralised process of land registration can also be an effective anti-corruption measure. First of all, it can check corruption among senior officials and their family members who get too many plots allotted in their name, contrary to rules.

It is also necessary for all the defence housing authorities, defence housing societies and defence colonies, which are too large in number, to be brought under a centralized registration process.

The fact is that while senior officials get plots of land wherever they are posted or even without a posting there, military offices too can get an allotment of land in each of the defence housing authorities or defence societies and colonies. If the government comes up with a national land registration it can know how many plots each officer and his wife and children have through official allotments. The officers could have also invested his illegal earnings or proceeds of corruption on the real estate.

At a time when a good apartment in Karachi or Islamabad can cost Rs15 million or even more, FLRA should have centralized and proper registration of the apartments above a certain cost as, by and by , more officials will be acquiring more such swanky apartments. And that is all the more so at a time of constantly rising prices of cement, steel and labour.

Businessmen who invest their illegal earning on real estate can also be identified by the government through such registration.

The registration can also be helpful to the income tax officials. Those who evade taxes massively and invest on real estate could be identified and prosecuted. Some such initiative was taken in the Defence Housing Authority of Karachi two years ago. It appears that has been given up. Did the tax officials compromise with the persons with tainted money or they confronted too many influential persons and had to give up the good move.

The computerized land registration could be an effective tax collection tool when persons are seen to have large homes and several in number, while they pay little or no tax and that can bring down property prices and enable a middle income persons acquire an abode.

But there are risks to also. The access to the national registers of the land or computers which store such information can be a controversial issue in these times when big time crimes are on the increase.

Unscrupulous men can use the information or pass it on to black-mailers and kidnappers who may demand large sums from persons with vast land holdings or varied real estate. How to protect data from such elements? For that matter, the government officers can also pass on such data to kidnappers in lieu of large sums or a share of the ransom.

While the government will have full access to the land data, the SBP has suggested that it should be available to banks who have to lend money to such persons for industrial or commercial purposes.

As time goes on the government agencies will acquire more and more data about the people and computers can make the process more elaborate or thorough.

Look at the size of the land transaction we are coming to have. A plot of land of 13.5 acres near the Jinnah Convention Centre in Islamabad reserved for a five-star hotel was sold on last Wednesday for Rs1.88 billion, an average cost of Rs75,000 per square yard. Outbidding all other external and domestic bidders was the Faisalabad Bismillah Niagara Paragon group which will invest far more on erecting the luxury hotel building.

In such an environment, there is the fear that the plots offered to industrialists by the government at concessional rates to set up industries in textile cities and elsewhere will be sold off by them at highly profitable rates. Hence officials, both in the Punjab and Sindh, are appealing to the industrial allottees of such plots not to indulge in such profiteering and give undertakings not to sell.

In such an environment, if land registration is made obligatory, they may not indulge in such profiteering. At present there is the Federal Land Commission which keeps records of the lands nationalized in 1972.

The Commission works under the supervision of the prime minister, but so far no prime minister had cared to revamp the Commission which can make a contribution to boosting the agricultural output and prevent land grabbing by usurpations elements. If the Commission had functioned properly it could have boosted revenues of the provinces a good deal.

Due to the manual maintenance of the records, a good deal of essential data was not available, says the SBP.

The need for stopping land transactions using duplicate or forged documents is urgent. Some years ago, the UBL came across a loan-seeker with 58 forged documents of property which appeared to be too good to be rejected. The bank officer could not believe that one person could have 58 documents with absolute ownership.

There appears to be no limits or boundaries when it comes to forging and no sacrosanct institution where it is not practised. So the new law has to take care of that with the help of the computers.

Of course, vested interests would oppose or retard the creation of a Federal Land Registration Authority as they would not want to be exposed or deterred in the pursuit of more land acquisitions or addition of apartment blocks of high value.

But the government should insist on the creation of such an authority, more so the prime minister Shaukat Aziz, to keep its own house clean and prevent the officials and their wives from having too many illegally secured plots or bought using bribe money.