Bihar govt now starts digitising registered documents since 1908

The registration department has undertaken a mammoth exercise of digitising all registered documents since 1908 while digitisation of 2.34 crore registered deeds from 1995 to 2025 has been already done, according to officials in the department.

According to officials in the Prohibition, Excise and Registration department, the process of digitising registered deeds of which majority are property deeds since 1908 is to be done in phases.

“The process for digitising 5 crore registered documents from 1908 to 1990 has begun. On a priority, the digitisation of registered documents would be done in batches year-wise from 1995 to 1990, 1990 to 1947 and then 1947 to 1908,” said a senior officer in the registration department.

The tenders for selecting the agency to digitise the documents year wise has been selected and the target of completing the process is next fiscal year, officials said.

The digitisation of registered documents as old as over 100 years is being done to preserve the old records of mainly landed properties so that land owners and building owners in the state could get title deeds of their properties in an easy manner and also it will help in resolving legal cases, officials said. The state government is already carrying special land survey for updation of land records since 1911, an exercise likely to be completed by December 2026.

Officials said that the digitisation of registered documents is also going to help in bringing more transparency in land records . “The digitisation of registered documents would also help in assessing land records quickly and with less hassles as the documents would be available easily,” said another officer.

In the last fiscal year 2024-25, the state government has earned ₹7,648 crore as against the target of ₹7,500 from registration department, which is much higher than the revenue earned by the department in fiscal year 2023-24. In 23-24, the registration department had earned ₹6,170 crore as against the target of ₹7,000 crore, officials said.

The registration department is also initiating some new measures for quick registration of land deeds like introducing paper less registration of documents at four offices and also opening three new registration offices at Birpur (Supaul), Sonbarsa (Saharsa) and Paliganj (Patna).

Meanwhile, revenue minister Sanjay Saraogi on Saturday held a review meeting to assess the ongoing works in the special land survey and has instructed officials to speed up the survey work especially in 20 districts where survey process had begun in the first phase.

The minister also expressed displeasure over the tardy progress in submission of self declared forms along with genealogical charts by land owners in support of their claim on the title of land for verification in east and west Champaran in north Bihar, where the survey work has begun in the second phase.

Saraogi also asked the field officers including settlement officers of each district to monitor the survey work by visiting camps and also ensure that problems of land owners in submission of self-declared forms are resolved. Dipak Kumar Singh, additional chief secretary, revenue, Jai Singh, secretary, revenue department Kamlesh Kumar Singh, director, land acquisition and other officials were present.