Bihar plans mutation reform to curb fraud

The Bihar government is planning to introduce spatial mutation along with textual mutation to bring transparency in sale and purchase of land, reducing incidents of fraud and title disputes in line with the practice in Gujarat, Odisha and Telangana, said an official.

At present only textual mutation is done in sale and purchase of land, a process, which records the name of the new owner in place of the old. “In common parlance, mutation term is used for textual mutation. After the registry of the land and mutation, the seller’s name is struck out and the name of the new owner, the buyer, is entered in register 2, however, in spatial mutation a real-time map of the land will be issued," said an official of revenue and land reforms department, who was not willing to be named.

Additional chief secretary, revenue and land reforms department, Vivek Kumar Singh, said to work on the technicalities of the spatial mutation along with textual mutation, a workshop of experts from Gujarat, Odisha and Telangana was being organised on March 1. “Besides the heads of department, the state information officer of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been invited to participate in the workshop. Kamal Jain of IIT Roorkee and technical experts of National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), Hyderabad, will also take part in the workshop,” he said.

Singh said revenue department officials and some circle officers will enlist practical problems they might face in implementing the new process, while another official said the buyer of land will get ‘shudhi patra’ or the name transfer certificate displaying map, plot number along with other details of ‘chauhaddi’ or the four next neighbours of the land under the new process.

“With the implementation of the new system, maps of all villages will become real-time, which will not hide any information and common people will not get cheated,” said Ram Surat Kumar, minister, revenue and land reforms.

Land getting fraudulently re-registered several times has been a common problem in these parts even resulting in criminal assault and murders.

Singh said the IT wing of revenue and land reforms department were working with NIC, which has made a software for smooth implementation of the new process.

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“For spatial mutation, an authorised surveyor will visit the land register the new demarcations before mutation of the land on the software. He will then present pre-mutation sketch to the circle office and get it approved and certified by the competent authority. This will change the land record and also create the real-time map of the village. The buyer will get the map of the plot carrying details along with the ‘shudhi patra’,” said Sanjay Kumar, the technical director of NIC.

The department was mulling to implement the scheme after the completion of a special survey, underway in the state.