FAISALABAD – Faisalabad is the first among 36 districts of the Punjab to introduce a computerised registration scheme for transferring property. The authorities claim that it is the most accurate and foolproof procedure that will bring the fraudulent deals regarding property to an end.
However, lack of staff at the single transfer counter for the whole district and absence of online verification through National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) have cast heavy aspersions on the success of the scheme.
The city government is determined to use information technology (IT) for protecting the public interest by introducing state of the art computerised system in the field of property transfers. According to this scheme, the verification of the seller will be undertaken online and this process will close all the possible loop holes existing in the traditional manual record system.
Briefing the journalists about the new scheme, Executive District Officer (EDO) Revenue Liaqat Chatha said that the department was bringing reforms in the property transfer system by linking up the scheme with NADRA with the help of a Lahore-based computer software company.
He added that the company would install the system after providing basic training to the revenue staff for operating the system and it would be connected to the NADRA office through computerised networking that would enable the operator to verify the National Identity Card (NIC) online.
He said that another significant feature of the proposed software was that its biometric system had the ability to record the thumb impression of the seller and tally it with the NADRA office record and any discrepancy found in the data would immediately be noticed by the revenue officials.
He added that department had directed the patwaris of the district to stay in their respective circles to dispose off the public matters related to save time and efforts of the clients to avoid visiting the Tehsil office of the Revenue Department.
He added that according to the new schedule, the patwaris would remain in their circles from Monday to Thursday every week and would come to Tehsil office on Fridays for transfers. Despite all exaggerations made by the authorities about the new scheme, the public’s feedback on the practical use of the system is very poor and quite unsatisfactory.
The system was heading towards failure from the very first day of its operation, a visitor said adding that there was no inherent flaw in the procedure but the problem was in its implementation as the visitors had to wait for hours to have a photograph for the procedure.
He warned that if the urgent improvements were not undertaken, the system would be unable to check the frauds and the citizens would continue to face difficulties and troubles. There are four registry branches operating in the district such as Urban-One, Urban-2, City branch and Sadar branch and for all these branches, there was only one computer operator and one photographer.
