Turning the pages of tons of cases filed in the judicial courts, Here are some of the most mind shocking cases regarding illegal landholding-

• When Laxmi, 57, was widowed in 2012, she lost more than her husband. Shortly after his death, her in-laws illegally took over the fields she had tilled for decades and even her shelter. They further harassed, intimidated her to leave her home, in an attempt to chase her away.

Fig 1. Laxmi tilling her land

 

• The aftermath of the deadliest earthquake whose epicenter was in Nepal was illegal landholdings and its distribution. A major obstacle which kept cropping up was there were thousands of plots of land where the rightful owner could not be identified, and in many instances ownerships were in dispute.
• On top of pre-existing documentation problems, a significant proportion of the population has lost their citizenship certificates in the piles of destruction caused.

Fig 2. Housing, land and property issues in Nepal

• These issues have had a big impact on recovery efforts, to this day. Construction projects have stalled, while government and contractors wait for ownership issues to be resolved. The current land registry system is rife with corruption and inefficiencies, and it is the unprotected citizens of Nepal that are suffering the most.

(Let us poll: How many of you think that short of reliable land registries and illegal landholdings led to British colonization in India? (Comment below))

Recently, There has been a commotion in the states regarding Rajasthan’s act to roll out blockchain technology for land records.

Why Blockchain? Wasn’t it related with Bitcoins? Will we use Bitcoins now for buying and selling of lands?

No.

Blockchain, a sole solution to all of the above-mentioned problems. The solution we are building incorporates many key benefits of the technology, such as an immutable(no change) history of transactional records, that can be viewed by everyone and tampered by no one; records are permanently linked to the system so no one can ever tamper with or forge a record of their own; and these records can be seen by any party, at any time. It is powerful and validating.

Whether be earthquakes, floods or hurricanes nothing can infringe your records on the blockchain.

Neither in-laws nor world’s most powerful hacker has the power to threat blockchain records.

So how this all works?

The concept is totally based on “Proof Of Concept” using smart contracts. Hence there will be a single contract which will contain a single source of truth of ownership status and history of a property. Thus, this system will ensure –

1. The land is legal and government authorized.
2. The seller is the legitimate owner of the property.
3. No hectic paper works, bribery and disputes.

Briefly speaking, it will capture and permanently record each transaction throughout the sale of a property. This means you achieve near real-time traceability and transparency into the state of the property. You need to have knowledge about blockchain for registering your property with it.

Just walk in the registration office, now the whole paper mess will be cleaned up using the systems where the records will be encapsulated using Blockchain. The process is very clean, transparent and time -efficient.

Looking forward to this boon to come in construction soon.