Verification for property registration will be Aadhaar-based soon

To prevent fraudulent property transfers through impersonation and stop benami deals, the department of registration and stamps will soon begin Aadhaar-based biometric verification during the registration process.

It will be one of the first in the country to do so. The department has also proposed that the state government start a campaign for people to link their Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) cards with property details. Officials point out that with real estate prices rising, cases of selling and transferring immovable property via impersonation too have increased.

“It is not tough to get an identity card for our officials to confirm the identity of the person coming for registration. Absentee property owners are especially at risk and there are instances where property of even well-educated people has been sold off,” an official admitted.

“We will start the verification of UIDAI details from October second week,” said S Chockalingam, inspector general of registration and controller of stamps, adding that this would help protect peoples’ right to property.

Maharashtra has around 2.3 crore rural land records known as ‘saatbara’ and 50 lakh property cards (urban land records). “Our syncronisation with Aadhaar is complete and we are able to verify the sub-registrar’s thumb impressions with the UIDAI central server. We will now extend this to the people,” said Chockalingam.

He, however, pointed out that fraudsters will not be willing to provide their Aadhaar numbers at the time of registration.“Hence, Aadhaar has to be seeded with the property records so that the number is available at the time of purchasing and selling property,” Chockalingam said, adding that they had hence requested the state government to start a campaign for people to link their land records with the UIDAI number.He also urged people to self-seed their UIDAI number in their property records at the time of registration. “The next time people go for registration, they must mention their UIDAI number for the records,” said Chockalingam.

The department of registration and stamps looks after registration of documents and collection of stamp duty through around 477 sub-registrar offices. Around 22 lakh documents were registered in 2012-13.

Cracking the whip
With the rise in real estate prices increasing impersonation in cases of selling and transferring immovable property, two initiatives are being considered.

The department of registration and stamps will begin Aadhaar-based biometric verification and it has suggested to the state to start a campaign for people to link their UIDAI cards with property details.