A Technology Turnaround: Overhauling District Revenue Archives
Born into a family of public servants, I have been exposed to the challenges of governance from an early age. In school as well as during college, I participated in several innovative projects focusing on finding solutions to these challenges. For example, during college, I led a team of 25 volunteers to conduct a social audit of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in East Champaran district of Bihar. After completing my graduation in Mathematics, I worked in the corporate sector designing analytical tools to provide data backed insights into Client’s business activities. My professional experiences shaped my inclination towards leveraging technology to strengthen governance. The CMGGA program turned out to be the perfect platform for my ideas.
Upon joining the program in Sonipat district, my interactions with the Deputy Commissioner (DC) gave further impetus to my ideas. As technology enthusiasts, both of us would discuss the potential of digital interventions to ameliorate administrative transparency. Incidentally one of the first work modules assigned to CMGGAs focused on re-engineering the process of citizen services in Tehsil offices. As an entity of the local government, the Tehsil office exercises certain fiscal and administrative power over the villages and municipalities within its jurisdiction. It is the ultimate executive agency for land records and related administrative matters. DC Sonipat encouraged me to dive deep, well beyond the scope of the module, to explore the system of revenue administration in its totality. To gain exposure to the revenue functions of Executive Magistrates, I started attending several revenue court proceedings. In India, despite a separate judiciary, several quasi-judicial functions related to land disputes are still vested in the Executive Magistrates, such as Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDMs), District Magistrate (DMs), etc. It was during these exposure visits to the revenue courts that I discerned the crucial importance of the revenue records archives in revenue administration.
Revenue records, dating back to up to 1880s, are broadly of the following four categories:-
1-Revenue court case files
2-Record of Rights (RoR) — (Known as Jamabandi or Intekal)
3-Records of land consolidation (Misal Halqiyat)
4-Land Registration Records
In case of any land disputes, these records constitute the core of a case history. Stored tehsil-wise in dedicated record rooms, the efficiency of decision making of any judicial or quasi-judicial body rests heavily on the accessibility of these records.
The poor management of records I witnessed in my visits to the record rooms of Sonipat baffled me. I observed a huge mismatch between the degree of importance these records hold for the government and the extent of attention paid to their management. To start with, records were kept in a dilapidated condition in gunny bags without any maintenance. The movement log of these records was very carelessly kept in paper registers. These records were replete with jargon, only interpreted by a handful of revenue staff. This expanded the scope of subjectivity and malfeasance, as there was a high degree of dependency on the department staff to retrieve any record. In the age of the Right to Information (RTI) and E-Governance, this system seemed to be ironic to the core. Lastly, the process flow for obtaining a photocopy (nakal, as it is called) of these archives for a citizen was particularly sub-optimal and included a lot of unnecessary steps, which I will delve into later in this article. I came to understand the reason why nearly 67% of judicial pendency in India are related to land disputes.
While reviewing available literature on land records, I came across a Central Government scheme called Digital India Land Records Modernization Program (DILRMP). The program aims to achieve a conclusive land titling system in India by leveraging drone technology, satellite imagery, remote sensing, and record digitization. One key aspect of the program is related to the digitization of archives of the revenue department by developing a document management software. The program guidelines constituted the foundation of the pilot project I initiated. The modalities of the pilot were further cemented through my visits to the National Archives of India and HARSAC (Haryana Space Application Center). Subsequently, the following 5-point action plan was chalked out:-
1- Developing a web-based document management software (DMS): The DMS developed facilitates digitization and file indexing of all categories of revenue records through QR Code technology. I finalized the outline and algorithm of the proposed software in collaboration with a team of software developers at the National Informatics Center(NIC), Sonipat, and Revenue department staff. It took us nearly 4 months to intricately study each category of records and develop the software portal. The software portal took nearly 1 month to go live as we had to host it on a server that complies with the data security guidelines of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY).
2- Process Re-engineering: The software portal also provides a platform for process re-engineering with regards to archive revenue records retrieval. Until now, the request for any nakal (copy) would go from the copying branch to the concerned record room. The original file would be retrieved and its photocopy would be taken.
This repeated requirement to retrieve the original file made it more vulnerable to physical damage. Also, the dependency over revenue department staff for retrieving records opened up the scope of malfeasance in this process.
But with the advent of this software, the records would be digitized, stored online, and indexed using QR codes. So, to entertain any citizen request for nakal, a computer operator at the copying branch would merely have to retrieve the digitized record (by entering the indexing parameters) from the application server and provide a print-out of the same to the applicant.
3- Developing Archive records requests as an online Government to Citizen (G2C) service: The web portal developed has a platform for citizens to apply online for obtaining copies of revenue archives. It also has a dashboard feature to track the status of record requests and the time elapsed in obtaining them. In addition to that, the portal also has features to enable payment for obtaining copies of records with an online judicial stamp. Lastly, it has a digital signature feature for testifying the authenticity of a record online. These features, combined together, can transform the process of revenue archive retrieval from a suboptimal hasty process to a seamless online system.
4- Streamlining and quality improvement of physical records: A large number of records were kept in a very dilapidated shape and arranged in a haphazard manner in these record rooms. Many records were in Urdu and the critical information pieces, such as file indexes, were missing from them. We utilized a team of around 100 local educated youth, enrolled with the district administration under Saksham Yuva scheme of the Government of Haryana, for this task. We also appointed a team of Village Accountants (Patwaris) to administer and provide training support to this team.
5- Capacity building of the Revenue Department Staff: The key focus area of this project has been the capacity building of the staff of the revenue department to instill a sense of ownership within them. We organized over 25 sessions with the revenue department staff throughout the duration of this project. It was particularly a challenging task to garner the support of the Record Keepers for this pilot. For them, the project meant a change in status quo wherein their work would largely be replaced by a computer. Ranging from the Deputy Commissioner to every Patwari, we ensured that the feedback of each and everyone was incorporated into the pilot.
As of February 2018, we have successfully completed a proof of concept of the project. It was presented to the honorable Chief Minister of Haryana on the 25th February, 2018 in a meeting attended by the Administrative Secretaries of the Revenue Department. Subsequently, the Revenue Department has decided to scale up the pilot across all districts of Haryana. The financing for this project shall be earmarked from the e-district project fund by the Directorate of Land Records, Government of Haryana.
I had chosen CMGGA program over the opportunity to pursue an MBA. Today, as I retrospect on my journey throughout this project, it has been the most encompassing project management crash course of my life. Being a mammoth project with several components and spanning across over 20 lakh records and a timeline of 15 months, the key task for me was to make this project self-sustaining.
The daily execution of this project has so far involved management of around 250 stakeholders spanning across 5 different departments/teams, each executing a separate work-stream, over a period of 9 months. Continuous experiential learning and subsequent course correction has been the mantra for success of the team. We mutually brainstormed and devised several strategic tools to ensure daily progress monitoring, effective team communication, and periodic reviews of the project.
To instill a sense of sustainability in this project, I have been systematically reducing my involvement in the daily execution work over the last 2 months. Today, a typical day in Sonipat Mini Secretariat is characterized by a team of 30 Patwaris and Saksham Yuvas taking up their daily quota of records from their assigned record room for quality improvement work according to a roster prepared by a Sadar Kanungo, who also ensures that a minimum daily productivity goal is achieved by the team. In another corner, a team of 60 computer operators takes the files from the record room for digitization as per a fixed schedule. A third team of 15 computer efficient Patwaris do the quality audit work records that have been scanned. A fourth group of 5 Patwaris, who have competence in translating Urdu records, take their daily quota of Urdu records from the Vernacular Record Keeper. While in another corner of the office, a team of software developers ensures smooth functioning of the portal backend. I, review the daily progress by paying surprise visits to the record rooms twice a day. Every weekend, a review meeting is chaired by the Deputy Commissioner to track the progress, the proceedings of which are given to all the stakeholders for compliance. The administrative machinery of Sonipat seems to have seamlessly self-ingrained the project requirements within its daily schedule.
The portal can be viewed at http://www.esonipat.in
