Implementation of e-khata for property registration in city likely to see month’s delay 

An aerial view of buildings in Bengaluru.
| Photo Credit: File Photo

The introduction of faceless, contactless e-khata system is likely to be delayed by a month in the city as the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is still awaiting data from Kaveri 2.0 to integrate it with the digitised property records, a key step to ensure a seamless citizen-friendly online experience.

The civic body is also yet to complete validating the 21 lakh property records it has digitised. This means, the BBMP will not be able to implement the mandatory e-khata system from Monday, as was announced by Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda. 

Since the Minister announced that e-khata will be mandatory for registration of properties from September 30, many citizens have been questioning how this would be possible when the feature is not introduced in the city limits. Anup Nair, a citizen, said, “There is no procedure for e-aasti and e-swathu in Bengaluru to do this online.” 

However, a source in the Revenue Ministry said the announcement by the Minister marks the start of the implementation process across the State in a phased manner and not a total implementation at one time. “The BBMP may take at least a month to streamline the system and after that it will be implemented. In Bengaluru Urban district also implementation will happen in a phased manner,” the official said. Meanwhile, the BBMP was also asked to provide e-khata on priority to those in need.

The official further said that the system has already been implemented in some districts such as Chitradurga, Raichur, Bagalkot, and Chamarajanagar through e-swathu under the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department to register properties. This was done on a pilot basis. 

Multi-level quality check

According to a senior BBMP official, the BBMP has digitised 21 lakh properties from 5,500 record books and now it is conducting a multi-level quality check of these property records involving case workers, deputy commissioners and joint commissioners. 

The exercise aims to reduce red tape and corruption over issuing khata, but at the same time also increasing property tax revenue. The agency tasked with digitising the records has finished the work. However, records of only 700 ledgers have been checked. Besides this the civic body is awaiting the data from Kaveri 2.0, the data pertaining to the sale deeds.

Once the system is launched, property owners will need to enter their names, complete an online KYC, and upload sale deeds of their properties (which can be fetched online from the Kaveri 2 database) to download an e-khata. Before the system goes live, the public will have a 7- to 15-day window to file objections.