E-khata: Many glitches to fix

40 days after launching the e-khata system that is a part of digitising properties in Bengaluru, many citizens are struggling due to technical issues

Avinash* (name changed) wants to sell his ancestral property as he needs money for his sister’s wedding. He has a khata in his name for the flat he wants to sell. The buyer is ready with a loan for registration of the property, but Avinash is stuck without e-khata for the property. He is lost because his name on his Aadhaar card and the sale deed do not match and authentication through Aadhaar e-KYC has been a problem.

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is digitising electronic records of properties, which can be accessed and downloaded anytime and anywhere online. The e-khata is an e-copy of existing khata for the property. 

“They are tamper-proof, transparent, in control and available to citizens unlike manual records which are in control of the bureaucracy, opaque and inaccessible,” says Munish Moudgil, Special Commissioner (Revenue), BBMP.

“Blockchain is at the back-end of BBMP e-khata. No one can manipulate it — not even the BBMP officials,” he adds. E-khata allows automatic Aadhaar-based changes, whereas the manual process can be opaque.

After digitising all 22 lakh manual BBMP khatas and releasing them online, the BBMP is asking citizens to add additional information to those digitised records. The details to be added are:

(1) Aadhaar

(2) GPS of the property

(3) Property’s photo

(4) Bescom meter number

(5) The corresponding property identification number mentioned in the tax receipts

(6) Uploading of documents to support A khata

Officials say BBMP teams are also visiting houses to capture the GPS of the properties.

B-khatas and e-khatas

Properties in Bengaluru do not get A khata majorly when they have no building plan approvals or deviate from the approved plan. Taxes from these are collected but entered by BBMP in the B Register. “The law treated both A and B khatas the same way always, except that they were in different registers. B Register properties got only khata extract and no khata certificate. Now, both A and B register properties get e-khata,” explains an official.

Can we assume that a property with e-khata is 100% legal and safe to buy with no loopholes? Moudgil says all properties currently having A-khata or B-khata will get A e-khata and B e-khata, respectively. This will continue for future properties as well.

However, that does not guarantee the complete legality of the property, especially for B khata properties. “E-khata is being issued for the existing khatas as they are. BBMP will address any issue that comes to its notice and take action,” he adds.

An e-khata does not legalise any pre-existing illegality either. “There is no legalisation being done. Properties in BBMP manual registers have been digitised and are being issued e-khata. If anyone raises any objection or issue on any specific property, it will be heard and decided on merit by BBMP,” says Moudgil.

Thus, the existing BBMP khatas will get e-khatas unless someone files an objection to it. In case of objections, the Assistant Revenue Officers will hold a hearing and decide the case on its merit.

User experience issues

Balu V L, a Malleshwaram resident who offers legal assistance and property consultancy, says he has been trying to help about 30 people to get e-khatas. They all need to sell their properties. Only two applications have been accepted, and the final e-khatas have yet to be given.

He says in some cases, the area given in the Kaveri system and the area given by citizens do not match. “Sometimes, the Kaveri system does not contain the area of the property, especially in the case of old documents, mainly because of data entry issues. In such properties, the area value is shown as zero, and the process does not move further,” he says. 

Raveendra, an information technology professional living in Shettihalli ward (Ward no 12), says he was the first to help get an e-khata. He points out many user experience issues. “It took a lot of time and energy to get the e-khata, which should have been just a click of a button,” he adds.

Anand says English search is not enabled, and eKYC gives an error (405 error). BBMP officials say there is no issue with Aadhaar KYC. However, practical issues in data entry and different spellings in different documents are preventing people from completing it. 

Raveendra says the system requires a perfect match between the Kaveri online system, the Aadhaar documentation, and the BBMP property tax system. He adds that even a spelling error can cause problems when getting e-khata.

“Some of the data captured by the BBMP is not uniform and not up to standard in some places, which can also cause problems,” he points out, giving an example. 

“If two people own a property, their names must appear in two rows. In some areas, they have added both names with an “and” in a single row. In such cases, the verification happens for the first name, not the second. The e-khata that comes out will have only one name. Is this acceptable to the Kaveri system or elsewhere? Will it not cause problems?” he asks.

Many other users complain about non-resident Indians who do not have Aadhaar but own ancestral properties, being unable to get e-khata and, therefore, unable to sell properties. Officials say provisions will be made to solve such cases in the future.

The problem in newer areas

Many properties in the 110 villages added to BBMP in 2008 have B khata, but they are not a part of BBMP documentation as the original documents would be with the panchayats to which they belonged. In many areas, BBMP has no record of such properties; hence, they are not available on the draft list on the website.

Kochu Shankar, a resident of Kalkere in the Horamavu area, says he had to apply for a B khata with all his documents to register his property in BBMP’s B register. He says about 80% of the buildings in the newer areas belong to this category and puts the number of such buildings at about 35 lakh. 

“There is no process to convert individual plots to A khata because developers did not follow the process of paying betterment charges and getting DC conversion certificates, etc., which is why the land is in the revenue category. Lawyers accepted it, banks gave loans, and BESCOM gave electricity connection; thus, things ran smoothly, but these properties are technically still illegal,” he explains.

Problem in registration

In the absence of e-khata, registrations have been postponed in most of the areas. Anand Yadawada, a citizen from East Bengaluru, says three inter-dependent property registrations are pending as none of the wonders have been able to get e-khatas yet.

Such a situation could have been avoided had the government made provisions to complete the process pending registration through a provision in the Stamps and Registration Act. “A registration has three steps: execution, presentation, authentication, and registration. A property can be executed, presented, authenticated, but the registration can be kept pending until the e-khata is available,” he explains. 

Such registrations go to the deputy registrar, and once the e-khata is received, registration becomes just a clerical task. This helps people who have to finish registration in a hurry due to travel abroad or other emergency situations, such as marriage or education. 

“The transaction would be over, loans would be issued, the whole process would be completed in such cases, and there would be no hassle to anyone,” he says. There is no risk of the khata not being received as it is just a copy of the existing khata, he adds.

Meanwhile the BBMP has already said it will issue e-khata in just a day for properties that need to be urgently registered. The facility can be availed by correctly uploading all the necessary documents on the BBMP’s website. The facility can be availed by correctly uploading all the necessary documents on the BBMP’s website. The civic body has also relaxed the encumbrance certificate (EC) rule.

‘Helpful system’

 “This is a good technological achievement that will help everyone in the long run,” Raveendra says. However, he says it is a mistake not to keep the major stakeholder, the citizen, in the loop. He says people should have been informed about this well in advance.

Balu says the property consultants and lawyers should also have been consulted before starting the e-khata process to help streamline things. 

Both Raveendra and Balu agree that the solution will help everyone in the long run and will help stop fraudulent transactions. “These are all initial hiccups; they will be set right soon. It might take about 90 days for the system to streamline,” Balu says.

“National Information Commission (NIC) is the developer of the e-Aasthi solution, and there is a continuous and daily improvement. This will continue for some time, as per emerging requirements,” says Moudgil.