Four family property deeds to go paperless

CHENNAI:
Tamil Nadu will make the registration of four types of family property deeds paperless from November 2, allowing documents to be created, submitted and processed online while requiring the parties to appear before the sub-registrar only for authentication, according to a government order issued by the Commercial Taxes and Registration Department on Wednesday.

The move covers settlement deeds, release deeds, partition deeds and revocation of settlement deeds relating to family arrangements, and is part of the Registration Department's continuing shift towards digital registration under Project STAR 3.0.

According to the GO, the digitally executed deeds and supporting documents will be submitted through the online registration facility and processed through an electronic workflow. After registration, the document will be digitally sent to the citizen's login and preserved in the STAR system.

However, the paperless system will not do away with the physical appearance of the parties. They will still have to appear before the concerned sub-registrar for identification, Aadhaar authentication and completion of the prescribed registration formalities, the GO said.

The move is aimed at reducing the repeated handling, movement and scanning of paper documents and the need to maintain physical records at different stages of the registration process. It is also expected to improve traceability and retrieval of registered documents.

The government order said the Registration Department had proposed the expansion of paperless registration as part of its wider technology-led reforms to make registration services simpler, more transparent and citizen-friendly.

The department began computerisation with the launch of the STAR platform in 2000 and introduced paperless registration for selected categories of documents in January this year.

The government had subsequently introduced the first phase of Anywhere Registration in August, covering first sale of plots by promoters and first sale of flats by builders along with consecutive deposit of title deeds.

The latest expansion follows an announcement made by the Commercial Taxes and Registration Minister in the Assembly on September 7 that the four categories of family-arrangement documents would be brought under paperless registration.

The GO said the November 2 rollout would be subject to software readiness, completion of necessary workflow modifications and training of departmental officials and stakeholders.