Government land titles to be updated by March

PUNE: Chandrakant Dalvi, the Pune divisional commissioner, has set March-end as the deadline for all government departments to update their respective land acquisition details in the final record of rights, which is the final ownership title.
As per the Pune divisional commissionerate's data, nearly 1,476 cases of land acquired by different government departments — amounting to approximately 5,000 hectares in Pune division spread across Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur and Kolhapur — are not reflected in the record of rights. While the land acquisition process may have been completed with even the awards declared to the private owner, the final ownership details of the government department, which should have been recorded in the mutation entries or the record of rights, are yet to be updated, said the officials.

The office of the divisional commissioner has now directed that all such cases be updated in the record of rights by the end of March to avoid confusion over land ownership in the future.



The drive was prompted by the alleged Bhosari land scam, in which a complaint has been filed against Eknath Khadse, the former revenue minister.

The drive has been slow in the division thanks to many missing land records. Records in nearly 626 cases are yet to be updated in Pune district, followed by Solapur (476), Kolhapur (344), Satara (19) and Sangli (11). According to the officials of the divisional commissionerate, there were a total of 10,194 cases pending till July 2017, and the number has now dwindled to 1,476.

Various government arms — public works department (PWD), irrigation department, Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), municipal corporations and councils, Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) etc. — have acquired private lands for various purposes. However, the records often do not show their ownership. Officials said this also involves tracts of land belonging to various corporations, councils and gram panchayats.

According to the revenue officials, these land tracts acquired by various government departments have completed the different stages of land acquisition, but only the final process of updating the records still remains. "In all these cases, the due process of acquisition has been completed. However, the final stage of updating the records is still pending. If the records are not updated, disputes can surface in the future. We have ordered the officials to update the record of rights. The process is still on. We have been able to reduce the pendency since June last year," said senior revenue officials from the Pune division.

"The incomplete process can be blamed either on laxity or negligence. The special drive is going to set these things right so that there are no problems in the future," a revenue official said.

Officials also said the sheer volume of data coupled with the shortage of staff to verify the documents — some of which go back to 60-70 years — have also delayed the works.