Understanding the Potential Benefits of Blockchain Technology in Property Records Administration in Karnataka
Property Records Administration in India
Land ownership in India is largely presumptive i.e.; the Government does not guarantee the land ownership rights to the holder. It is the onus of the holder to establish ownership through a registered sale deed, an official record of a property transaction between the buyer and seller. Other documents to support the ownership are record of right (RoR), property tax receipts, and survey documents. Currently, there are several challenges in property administration in India, such as impersonation during property registration, forgery of documents, inaccurate survey maps, and non-standardised identity of citizens and properties across databases. These factors combined with many other administrative issues in land administration, lead to a high number of litigations pertaining to the dimensions and ownership of immovable properties.
The Government of Karnataka has undertaken various reform initiatives such as implementing online systems for registering deeds and maintaining property records. The Rural Development and Panchayath Raj Department, which oversees local self-governance in rural areas, has developed an online system named e-Swathu to maintain non-agricultural property records. This system has solved many problems related to property mutations and record-keeping and has benefitted the citizens by easing the process using technology. However, fraudulent transactions still exist, and the number of property related disputes remain high.
Objective of the pilot
The vision of the pilot is to test the possibility of a unified blockchain platform for property administration by creating an integrated blockchain for property deed registration system and rural property records system. The pilot will attempt to bring the following reforms/improvements:
a) Standardisation of property IDs across multiple government departments and databases
b) Standardisation of citizen’s identity across multiple government departments and databases
c) Reduction of manual intervention for verification of documents
d) Reduction in touchpoints for citizens/businesses for property related transactions
e) Ensuring immutability of records to counter forgery and impersonation.
Sprint One: Validation of Assumptions, Outcomes, and Government permissions
Under this sprint, the programme team wanted to test the potential of Blockchain technology to solve some of the issues described earlier. The first Sprint was divided into 5 experiments which were based on certain assumptions. These assumptions were based on the scalability and impact of the proposed Blockchain solution for property administration.
During the start of the Sprint 1, the programme team met the relevant Government stakeholders and brainstormed on the scope of the work. After multiple rounds of consultations, the work was divided under the following phases:
a) Assessment phase: where the programme team studied the current regulatory environment, institutional set-up, and IT-enabled processes of property administration in Karnataka
b) Design phase: where the programme team designed the To-Be model of the property administration using Blockchain technology — Functional, Technical and Integration architecture
The scope of work was validated by the government, post which the programme team started the As-Is assessment by studying the legal, institutional, and IT-enabled processes for Property administration in Karnataka.
During the design of the proposed model, the team wanted to explore a solution that would reduce the physical touchpoints as well as the overall time required to avail property record mutation services. Multiple rounds of consultations with stakeholder departments and existing IT agencies, after which the programme team was able to design a model in which the National ID (Aadhaar Number) of a citizen would be used for validating the identity of the citizen and consecutively the property ownership. The solution proposes to reduce the overall physical touchpoint as the citizens would not be required to visit the Government offices, hence also saving time and money.
Learnings
Through multiple stakeholder discussions and consultations, the team was able to understand the challenges faced by the current property administration system in Indian states. Blockchain as a technology provides some important functionalities like immutability and provenance which can potentially solve some of the major challenges in property administration such as countering forgery and frauds related to property transactions. However, there are certain challenges which do not fall under the category of systems and technologies. These challenges need the government to have a multidimensional approach and requires major overhaul of regulations and institutional setup.
Currently, there are multiple departments administering various services for an immovable property. These departments have their respective IT systems with some integration, facilitating exchange of data. Moreover, the property ID of each unique immovable property is not uniform across these IT systems. This makes it difficult to have a single source of truth for information related to an immovable property. Blockchain using enterprise Blockchain network features can have defined policies which ensure the ownership of services over an asset, these policies are part of network configurations and can’t be changed without the approval of all the stakeholders with similar rights within the blockchain network. However, the onus lies on the coordination and willingness of the government stakeholders to join hands to make a unified system where all the property management services are integrated with one another, providing a single source of truth.
Since Land is a State (province) subject in India, hence different states have different laws governing the land and property administration in their respective jurisdictions. Moreover, the high number of litigations over properties in India is another major issue which needs interventions from the legislative standpoint. The State governments can decide whether to adopt the Model Land Titling Act proposed by the central government or continue with the existing land/property administration mechanisms and implement reforms that bring efficiency in the current administrative set-up.
Many problems are known to us, just that some solutions require the right approach for a dialogue with the stakeholders. While the team attempted to have consultations with all relevant stakeholders, it was learnt that in order to arrive at decisions, it is essential to bring all stakeholders to one platform and formalise their roles and responsibilities. The team also learnt the importance of the FTL’s Sprint approach, where experimenting with the assumptions is crucial and it leaves ample opportunities for course correction if required. For this, FCDO and IMC Worldwide played a significant role in supporting the team in analysing the problem statement, forming the assumptions, and contemplating the activities to be carried out.
Way Forward
In the next sprint, the programme team would work towards identifying a Technology Partner which aligns with the requirements of both the Government and the programme goals. The team would also undertake stakeholder consultations to finalise the District/Sub-District(s) where the pilot programme will be executed.
PS: Navneet Kumar and Raunak Sharma have co-authored this blog.
