BENGALURU: Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) may have recently launched its e-khata system with much fanfare, but its pilot launched two years ago in East zone has had only 8.6% — or 30,000 — of the 3.5 lakh property owners availing the certificate.
Introduced on a pilot basis in 2022, the e-khata initiative aimed to bring transparency and streamline the process of managing property records. However, the uptake has been slower than expected. Special commissioner (revenue) Munish Moudgil attributed the low response to factors such as lack of awareness and difficulties in submitting documents such GPS data and KYC details.
“Despite our extensive promotion and advocacy for e-khata, very few people have come forward to complete the process,” said another senior BBMP revenue official. “Those who already have their e-khata need only link their GPS data to the system.”
The primary goal of e-khata is to prevent exploitation by officials such as assistant revenue officer (ARO) and panchayat development officer (PDO). According to a senior bureaucrat from the revenue department, property owners previously had to spend anywhere between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh, depending on property size, to obtain the khata certificate, often facing fraudulent practices. “We introduced this system to eliminate such issues and streamline the process,” the official added.
The e-khata system simplifies property management for the BBMP’s revenue department, ensuring transparency and accountability. It was first implemented in three wards in Shantinagar sub-division and later expanded to 11 wards in Domlur, CV Raman Nagar, and Jeevan Bima Nagar.
The second phase extended to 30 wards, including JC Nagar, Hebbal, Shivajinagar, Vasanthnagar, Pulikeshinagar, KG Halli, Maruthi Sevanagar, and HBR Layout. Handwritten property rights certificates, including Uttara Patra (except for applications processed through Sakala), have been banned.
The e-khata system is developed by the National Informatics Centre and customised for BBMP in collaboration with the directorate of municipal administration and the state data centre. The digital documents now contain 42 fields of information, such as property rights, floor details, tax details, property and owner photos, and GPS information — compared to the 18 fields in previous khata certificates.
The system is integrated with Kaveri, maintained by the department of stamps and registration, which automates property mutations during transactions like sales or gifts.
