Chennai, Sept 8:
The Tamil Nadu government has announced a sweeping overhaul of the Registration Department, combining digital registration, technology upgrades and administrative restructuring to make property registration faster and reduce the need for repeated visits to government offices.
As part of the reforms, 25 Model Registration Hubs will be established in North Chennai, Central Chennai, South Chennai, Chengalpattu and Coimbatore North. The hubs are aimed at reducing queues and congestion at sub-registrar offices.
Another 25 high-volume sub-registrar offices will receive additional staff, computers and advanced scanners so that registered documents can be scanned and returned to citizens immediately after registration.
The government will also rationalise the jurisdiction of sub-registrar offices. The boundaries will be redrawn so that each revenue village falls within a single registration jurisdiction, while workloads will be redistributed among offices to improve efficiency.
The department has selected IIT-Madras as the technical consultant to upgrade the STAR 2.0/3.0 registration software. The system handles around 35 lakh documents annually, making capacity, speed and cybersecurity key priorities.
The government is also expanding presenceless registration. From September 15, registration of deposit of title deeds and receipt documents relating to loans from banks and NBFCs will become mandatory through the presenceless system.
From October 15, settlement, release, partition and revocation of settlement deeds will move to mandatory paperless registration. Around 5.4 lakh such family arrangement deeds are registered annually.
Technology-based verification will also be strengthened. API integration will enable real-time verification of death and legal-heir certificates, helping prevent fraudulent registrations using forged documents.
The Registration Department will also allow the HR&CE Department and Waqf Board to directly update prohibited-property information in the STAR system.
A dedicated Data Analytics Cell will analyse registration data, guideline values and geospatial information to support policy decisions.
The department will facilitate direct delivery of digitally generated copies of certificates registered from 2018 onwards after payment of the prescribed fee online.
In a move aimed at reducing the workload of officials, compulsory Saturday duty will be discontinued at 100 sub-registrar offices. With the expansion of presenceless registration, the government said the offices could function on weekdays while reducing disruption to other administrative responsibilities.