Times of India: Madurai: Friday, September 15, 2017.
An RTI
petition has revealed that registration offices across the state may have
swindled lakhs of rupees by refusing to provide compact discs (CD) along with
details of the registered documents even after obtaining Rs 50 towards a CD for
each registration.
A Sahubar
Ali, of Ilamanur in Madurai, said he had registered a plot purchased in his
sister-in-law's name at the Teppakulam sub registrar's office. He was asked to
pay Rs 50 more for the documentation of the registration process on a CD which
would be given to him. "I thought this technology of having everything on
a CD would do away with many hassles involved in registration of documents and
promptly paid it," he said. He was told that the entire registration
process would be recorded with the help of the CCTV camera in the office and
that a copy will be given to him. It would also help detect frauds easily, he
added. However, when he went to the sub-registrar's office and asked for a copy
of the CD, he was told that they were no longer issued. "I was told that
no CD would be issued nor the money returned," he said.
As they had
told him that CDs were no longer issued, he decided to file an RTI petition to
find out if the programme had indeed been stalled. The provision of CDs for
registration was called the project 'Star' Simplified and Transparent
Administration of Registration.
The RTI reply
stated that the CD scheme had been implemented since Novermberr 6, 2011.
According to the RTI, the CDs had not been given to the public between January
1, 2016 and July 11, 2017. About 10,000 registrations take place in each
sub-registrar office annually .
The
sub-registrar's office in Teppakulam alone seemed to have received nearly Rs 5
lakh and not provided the CDs to the public, he said. If this was the situation
in all 350 sub registrar offices across the state, then about Rs 17,50,00,000
seems to have been swindled on an average in these offices.
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