Gujarat Pilot Project to Club NA Process with Property Cards

The state government has launched a pilot project to ease the process of issuing property cards. Starting with the Ghatlodia taluka of the city, it will be introduced in other talukas in a phased manner. Under the system, once the agricultural land gets converted to non-agriculture (NA), the 7/12 record will be closed. As the NA is recorded on e-dhara portal, a city survey number would be generated and property cards issued immediately to the farmers and land-owners. The pilot project will do away with the cumbersome process and introduce transparency in issuing of property cards. Citizens owning private land will benefit as transactions will immediately reflect in property cards. In Ahmedabad, property cards have been generated for 40 percent of the land and properties with city survey numbers. For the rest, citizens have to depend on 7/12 records. Notably, the Walled City areas have been included under the scheme. Land owners or farmers apply for conversion of agriculture to NA land under section 65 of the Gujarat Land Revenue Act. The collector’s office checks the title and premium is collected in cases where the government has interest. In other cases, transfer fee is levied and NA is executed. After conversion to NA, records are sent to the e-dhara centre where a survey number is generated and the 7/12 record is closed. Earlier, several cases had come to light where farmers converted their land to NA but later 7/12 records were not available. The government then launched the pilot project to issue property cards. A senior official at the city Collectorate said the new initiative will prevent fraud as citizens will directly get property cards.