Thiruvananthapuram: Land transactions are cumbersome and time-consuming as they entail the procurement and submission of myriad revenue records.
In a bid to ease this process for overseas Keralites, the State Revenue Department is establishing a dedicated expatriate portal and help desk. These would help expatriates (or pravasis as they are known in the government lingo) to find solutions to their complaints and other needs with regard to their land, while they remain abroad.
The help desk will be operated by entrusting designated officials from the Revenue Minister’s office down to the village office with the responsibility. The dedicated portal will be started from next month. Applications can be made online from abroad through the portal. The village office will conduct the inquiry and the response will be displayed on the dashboard.
Revenue Minister K Rajan said that there would be a system in place to track the files.
Steps are being taken in the office of Land Revenue Commissioner to form a dedicated team of officials under the leadership of the Deputy Commissioner. In districts, the responsibility will be given to Deputy Collectors. In taluks, deputy tahildars will personally check the file. The Minister will personally analyze the complaints in the portal once a month.
Integrated portal next month
Steps to integrate the revenue portal for online services related to land and the portal used by the Registration Department for land registrations will be completed in February.
After the registration of the land, the owner does not need to visit the village office with the documents for effecting the change of registry of the land. Once the registration is over on the registration portal, the documents will reach the portal of the Revenue Department for change of registry.
Nine services, including change of registry and payment of tax, are available on the Revenue portal. Once the digital survey of lands is completed, the three portals will be brought under one umbrella by integrating the map portal too.
By entering the survey number, the map of any piece of land can be seen by anyone from anywhere.