Pathanamthitta: The Kerala Government has issued an order linking Aadhaar with land ownership after the Centre cracked the whip in this regard. A directive had been sent by the Centre to all states demanding framing of this rule under the Digital India initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but the real intention is to check ‘benami’ (proxy) transactions.
Apart from Kerala, 15 other states in India including Karnataka and Maharashtra have initiated measures to implement this rule. After the nationwide implementation, the Aadhaar-land ownership linking would enable authorities to learn whether a person owns land at more than one place.
Kerala is seeking the support of National Informatics Centre (NIC) to implement this rule. A dedicated software is also ready to prepare an Aadhaar-based countrywide land register.
At present, land documents are available only at the respective village offices. In case a person buys land in one village and then at another, the officer at the second village would be in the dark about the first transaction.
However, after the Aadhaar is linked, officials at the village and sub-registrar offices would be aware of all the previous land deals of a person approaching them.
It is pointed out that another advantage of the linking is that after a clear idea of each individual’s land holdings is obtained, the exact extent of excess and encroached government land could be tabulated.
It was in 2018 that the Centre had initially sent the directive on Aadhaar - land register linking to Chief Secretary, Head of the Registration Department and the Land Revenue Commissioner of the state. However, after Kerala did not respond, the Centre communicated with the state several times on this regard. Following this a draft rule was prepared by the Land Revenue Commissioner and submitted to the Revenue Department last year. Detailed discussions were later held on the draft before the order was issued.
