PUNE: Tenants in Pune and Mumbai will soon be spared the trouble of visiting police stations for verification with the registration department preparing to integrate its data with the police department’s network across 217 police stations.
Registration department officials on Thursday said the integration would cover 130 police stations in Mumbai city and suburban areas, and 87 police stations in Pune city and rural areas. This marks the first phase of a wider rollout of the initiative planned to eventually encompass all 1,134 police stations across Maharashtra.
The system, which was previously piloted in Pune city, faced delays because of software revisions. “Technical glitches and software updates have been resolved. The rollout of the new updated software for e-registration for tenants, along with the online tenant verification system, will be in place for Pune and Mumbai in the first part of April. For the entire state, the system will be rolled out by April-end,” a senior official from the registration department.
DIG IT Abhay Mohite told TOI, “The upgraded software will be integrated with the Police CCTNS network. This will save citizens from physically visiting police stations. We are rolling out the system in phases.
The latest development comes after additional collectors recently mandated property owners, especially in rural areas, to submit comprehensive tenant details at local police stations. The order requires submission of tenants’ names, addresses, photographs, and references of two people who know them with the e-registration documents.
A registration department official said online verification was earlier allowed in Pune city, but the old system was linked to the CCTNS network. “Though the system is not currently operational online, we used to provide the Excel sheet of the tenant registrations across the state to the police department,” the official said. However, the citizens were still made to visit police stations for tenant verification.
Nearly 85,000-90,000 leave and licence documents are e-registered in the state every month, show records available with property registration offices.
Sachin Shinghavi, Pune President of Association of Real Estate Agents, told TOI that the online verification of tenants was their long-time demand. “We have sent several letters to the registration and police departments for this. The process encourages property owners to register their documents, instead of making agreements on affidavits.”
Recently, the Mumbai police filed an FIR against property owners who failed to submit tenant information to police as mandated by the police commissioner’s order. FIRs were lodged against two property owners from Kurla and Dadar over the past weekend for failing to upload their tenants’ details on the police website. The charge, Section 223 of BNS (violating a public servant’s order), can lead to up to a year in jail.
“Unregistered tenants pose a serious security risk. This crackdown aims at safeguarding Mumbai and ensuring accountability from property owners,” said a senior official.
A registration department official said the new system was a perfect example of how departments could work together to ensure due checks and citizens’ safety. “This is also a simple way to share data,” the official said, adding that total documents registered over five years reached nearly 50 lakh.
