Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 12: Government today expressed inability to decide nearly 80,000 cases pending under Jammu and Kashmir State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 popularly known as Roshni Scheme. Moreover, it has made it clear that people of the State will have to wait till 2022 for digitization of revenue records, which otherwise is of immense importance to bring transparency in the functioning of the scandal ridden Revenue Department.
Under Jammu and Kashmir State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001, a total of 11231 cases were approved in 10 districts of Kashmir valley and 42302 in 10 districts of Jammu division. However, 41562 cases were rejected in Kashmir division and 74784 cases in Jammu region under this scheme.
A total of 53562 cases in Kashmir valley and 25712 cases in Jammu division are pending for disposal with the concerned authorities and the Government has no immediate plans to dispose of these cases as per the provisions of the Roshni Scheme.
“Since various cases decided under the provisions of J&K State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 are under investigation with various agencies as also the CAG report regarding alleged irregularities in implementation of the scheme is under examination with Public Accounts Committee, no action is presently being taken by the revenue subordinate field functionaries on the cases pending disposal”, said the Revenue Minister in the Legislative Assembly in response to the question of National Conference MLA Ali Mohammad Sagar.
“Moreover, the entire legislation is also under challenge before the High Court and further action will be taken only after outcome of the deliberations being held by the Public Accounts Committee and the final disposal of the case being sub-judice before the High Court”, the Minister said.
About the progress achieved on computerization of revenue records in the State, the Revenue Minister said that digitization has been taken up under the National Land Records Modernization Programme (renamed as Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme) introduced by the Government of India.
“The Government has outsourced the major components of the project to an IT company namely M/s RAMTech Software Solutions Pvt Ltd and after completion of the pre-requisites, the project formally took off in April 2016”, he informed the House, adding “since then the scanning of 39.61 lakh revenue documents and 0.18 lakh Mussavis has been completed”.
Out of these scanned Mussavis, 233 have been integrated with the Record of Rights (ROR) and digitized. “The department is in the process of digitization of all revenue records of the State”, he added.
Stating that Revenue Department has planned to complete the digitization of revenue records of the State in a phased manner, the Revenue Minister said that two districts-Jammu and Srinagar have initially been taken up on pilot basis and based on the success of the project, other districts will also be taken up in subsequent phases.
“The programme for digitization of the revenue records of the State is likely to be completed by the end of March 2022”, the Minister said. This has established that people of the State will have to wait for numerous years to get digitized revenue records, which otherwise is imperative to bring transparency in the functioning of the scandal ridden Revenue Department.
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