A story about the Limits of digitization in an era of powerful Land Revenue officials. Saga of Gomala land.

The Government of Karnataka, like many other states in India, often allots pasture (“Gomala”) or other government land to the landless — some members of SC/ST, deserving ex-servicemen, war widows, and even deserving sportsmen. In theory, this is an act of compassion and benevolence for the needy and deserving to help them eke out a living out of a parcel of land. (ref: PV Sindhu allotted land by Telangana government for winning silver in Rio Olympics , Ex-servicemen demand land grant in a month’s time )

Revenue officials at the district, taluk and local levels of administration assiduously track such available pasture and government lands. The tracking and accounting of available lands are managed at the local level while the administration and governance happens at the district levels.

In many cases, the land by itself isn’t worth much on the open market; nevertheless, a small amount or a ‘gift’ is generally expected by land/revenue officials at the time of formalizing the registration of such ‘government granted’ land’s paperwork. The paperwork, including updating survey of the land records by government surveyors, recording of ‘mutation’ to show the breakup of larger tracts of land into smaller parcel and the actual update of government records is a rather long-drawn process involving several government departments at the Village Panchayat, Taluk and district administration levels. Update of records at each level requires greasing of palms.

Crash course in Land Documentation in Bangalore, Karnataka

My crash course in such documentation began after I discovered a rather elaborate ruse my elderly father had fallen for a couple of decades ago. Nearly three decades ago, in 1979, the district officials in Bangalore North had granted ½ acre (about 20 ‘guntas’) land to a landless widow, Rudramma. She received a document signed by the local district official that indicated such a grant. About twenty years after she received the grant, Rudramma decided to sell the land as she was in need of money. A broker approached my dad, Krish, with the offer.

In 1995, Rudramma signed a ‘sale deed’ with my dad, transferring ‘her’ rights over the land to him in exchange for some money. Only after my father took over the paperwork that he realized the basic problem: Ms Rudramma had not taken possession of the land granted to her. She hadn’t got the government records updated to indicate her ownership and rights. A few years after Rudramma sold the land, she passed away.

In 1995, the land was probably worth 2 lakh rupees, a sizable savings by the day’s standards but not a lot in today’s money.

A picture of the 1/2 acre land in North Bangalore

Krish began running from pillar to post trying to get the government records updated with his name. He contacted the local village accountant and a member of the Panchayat (elected representative at the local level) who ‘allowed’ him to build a small shed and put some fencing around the parcel of land. However, the sale or ownership didn’t get recorded in the government records despite large sums of money and ‘gifts’ exchanging hands. A few fundamental problems jumped out when I got involved:

• Krish speaks only broken Kannada, the local language, and doesn’t read a word of the language and depends on his ‘agents’ who are not always scrupulous.

• The agents discovered this basic weakness of local language and processes and began extorting money on the pretext of shuffling the papers, inviting him to join endless series of ‘land surveys’.

In the past couple of decades, the area around North Bangalore has developed at a fast pace. The value of land in the region has appreciated exponentially, which meant two things: the incentive for government officials to work on paperwork went down since the ‘government’ land was worth much more, and they could expect a better payoff. Correspondingly, my dad’s hopes were being fueled by the ‘agents’ with the inflated expectations of a return on his ‘investment.’

After all, at current market price, even a few hundred rupees per square foot, for half acre (about 20,000 square feet) translates to hundreds of thousands of rupees.

I decided to involve myself in the business of this land for a couple of reasons: Krish, my dad, is aging and is physically incapacitated due to age-related ailments. However, since his mental faculties remain strong, the ‘agents’ have been able to extort large sums of money from him (even as recently as in 2016) continuing to fuel hopes of ‘moving’ the paperwork.

Research on Bhoomi land records

The Government of Karnataka, in the past decade has invested considerable resources in a much lauded effort at digitizing the land and property records. The web based application, called ‘Bhoomi’ (link) is rather simple and easy to use and shows all details of a specific land based on basic search of the location. One just needs basic information like District, Hobli, Village and survey number to begin a search of the Records of Rights, Tenancy and Crops (RTC or Phani).

I spent a couple of hours one afternoon clicking around Bhoomi records for the land in question, survey number 36, and began to understand the intricate pieces of the puzzle.

In the past two decades, my dad has sent appeal after appeal to the office of Tahsildar, District Commissioner and sundry government officials. About, 10 years ago, he also received a notification from district officials to produce documents like the original grant letter and sale deed which he produced. However, nothing came of that exercise.

It turns out that the original parcel of the land in the village in question began as 42.44 acres of government ‘gomala’ land. In 2006, the government, with an order transferred about 1 acre of land for Hindu and Christian cemetery each and another 1.20 acres for ‘Muslim Community Memorial.’ Earlier mutation record history shows that about 2 acres of the survey were owned by one Mr. Hanumanthappa. That land of about 2.10 was then auctioned to a certain corporate entity “Agriculture Technologies Pvt Ltd” by an action on 28/09/2012

Of the 37.14 acres of land remaining from the original 42.44 in the survey number 36, about 24.20 acres shows as “being processed”

A few months ago, when I came across articles in the media about Karnataka government’s ‘Akrama Shakrama,’ I sent a letter to the office of the Chief Minister, Mr. Siddaramaiah and received a response saying I should contact the Deputy commissioner’s office. I followed up with a letter to the DC of Bangalore North and am still awaiting an acknowledgment. I have followed up with another letter to the office of the Tahisaldar in July 2017 though I am not holding my breath.

I am beginning to wonder about the options ahead :

• Do I continue to look for ‘agents’ who can influence local government officials? The risk here is obvious. I may end up paying bribes to miscellaneous folks without any outcome

• Seek legal remedy — it is unclear what, if any, legal remedies are open to us

• Seek help from media — there are probably thousands of such cases of land allottees and buyers running from pillar to post, and this is yet another story.

• Walk away — Sounds like an easy way out but there is sunk-cost at stake here.

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What do you think could be done? (Will update this space when I get constructive inputs )