Jagatsinghpur: Middlemen are making easy bucks by booking slots meant for land registration at subregistrar office in Jagatsinghpur and selling them to people in need later, thereby defeating the very purpose of the introduction of online booking system by the Inspector General of Registration (IGR) under Board of Revenue, Odisha, according to a report.
The IGR provides the slots in its portal available for a particular day to improve the service delivery system and apparently to prevent rush at the sub-registrar office. Those who book the slots in advance will get the chance to sell/purchase land on a particular day. The slots are provided free of cost to people interested in land registration/sale.
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However, people are forced to pay anything between Rs 400 and Rs 500 to buy the slots as they fail to book the slots online due to the pre-booking of slots by middlemen and agents the previous night. Sources said in the past those who could bribe the middlemen in the sub-registrar office were allowed to complete their land registration in advance while the rest pushed to the bottom of the list of applicants. Later, the state government attempted to do away with the irregularities and bring transparency in land dealings when it introduced online slot booking at the sub-registrar office in the district headquarters here as well as all the sub-registrar offices in the district.
As per the scheme, the IGR displays the slots available for a particular day. Accordingly, a maximum of 15 to 20 transactions are allowed on a particular day at Jagatsinghpur sub-registrar office. Although slot booking is available free of cost, people are forced to grease the palms of middlemen to buy the slots due to their non-availability. Locals alleged that the IGR releases the slots everyday in between 12 o’clock at midnight till the small hours of the next day. Taking advantage of the lack of awareness among people about the release of slots by the IGR, middlemen start booking the slots, as soon as they open, in their names till they are exhausted.
All the slots are booked within 5-10 minutes of their release in the IGR portal. This deprives people in genuine need of land registration/sale from availing a slot. Sources also said, that in this process, the middlemen book all the slots available for the next eight to 10 days. Left with no options, people who are in dire need of land registration/sale and who do not wish a further delay seek the help of a middleman. There are also allegations of harassment by the middlemen who often play truant with gullible persons coming from far-off places by fixing their slots to some other day. About the modus operandi, sources said a middleman first books the slot in his name by registering his mobile number. Then, he collects money and the copies of Aadhaar card and PAN card of the buyer/seller of the land if they want to get a slot for a particular day.
Later, he cancels the slot and registers the same against his client without any delay. When contacted, district sub-registrar Banamali Sethy expressed his helplessness as slot booking is not within his jurisdiction and is done by the IGR.
PNN
