MINUTES OF 4th MEETING OF THE PROJECT PLATINUM ...

MINUTES OF
4th MEETING OF THE PROJECT PLATINUM NATIONAL WORKING GROUP
FOR
CREATION OF THE NATIONAL GUIDELINES ON GUARANTEED LAND
TITLE IN URBAN AREAS
10:30 AM, 26. 11.2010, NIRMAN BHAWAN, NEW DELHI
1. The 4 th meeting of the Project PLATINUM Working Group was held on 26 November
2010 at the Conference Hall of the Ministry of Urban Development Government of India,
(MoUD) under the chairpersonship of Shri Navin Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Urban
Development, The list of participants is annexed.
2. Ms. Swati Ramanathan started the proceedings by introducing the delegates from Peru:
Mr Cesar Berrios, General Manager of the World Bank program PCDPI in Peru; Mr
Gonzalo Blanco, General Manager, COFOPORI, Government of Peru; and Mr Peter
Rabley, President, International Land Systems, USA.
3. Secretary (UD) welcomed the delegates and introduced them to the context in which the
4th Working Group meeting has been convened. He spoke about the various reforms
prescribed under the JNNURM. He said that in respect of reform of "Introduction of
Property Title Certification System in ULBs" there hasn’t been much progress due to the
lack of experience and capacity in state governments. He highlighted that Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan are the only major states which have made some progress
on this reform
4. The meeting’s first presentation was from officials from Government of Peru, Mr Cesar
Berrios and Mr Gonzalo Blanco. They presentation covered issues related to
formalization of real property rights that took place in Peru.
5. Mr Cesar began by giving a brief background about the reasons and rationale for the
need of such a reform and stated that it became necessary due to excessive pressures on
the urban areas resulting from migration. This in turn was causing overcrowding, and
squatting as a result of which the demands for urban services was not being met
adequately. He mentioned that in Peru the issue of titles was not given priority and the
frequent changes in administration at local and national level adversely affected the
decision making process for a long time. It had been very difficult for the urban poor to
get titles due to the huge time and cost involved and COFOPRI was established as a
solution to provide for titles as well as assets to urban poor through formalization of their
property rights.
6. Mr Gonzalo then explained the legal framework of COFOPRI. He talked about the
neglect of the rural population that had migrated to urban areas till the time the urban
population became 60% in Peru. There was difficulty in addressing this problem due to
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the complex political composition in Peru government. Eventually a legal and
institutional solution to this problem was initiated in 1996 through COFOPRI
7. He said that the institutional changes entailed placing a sector of urban population under
state protection and incorporating informal property rights into the formal economy. The
Urban Property Registry with nationwide scope was the most essential part of the reform
and it was created with the purpose of registering the deeds originating from the
formalization of property carried out by COFOPRI. This public registry had simplified
procedures for registration and publication of registry information and used modern
technology and also aimed at creating a geo-referenced cadastral system. He highlighted
the importance of registry since individual level data has to be maintained and such data
should have both the physical reality as well as the ownership details of the property. He
also said that it’s better to formalize first and then create the cadastre as in doing vice
versa, there is a greater chance of committing errors and by formalizing, cadastres will be
eventually created over time
8. He said initially it’s only a basic cadastre and then by correcting the errors, complete
integrated cadastre is created. He said that municipalities weren’t capable institutionally
to undertake this reform. Mr Cesar added that municipalities don’t have enough
technological expertise to undertake surveys and create cadasters
9. Ms Swati pointed that this type of mapping is essential for the work that HUPA and
Karnataka Directorate of Municipal Administration, are doing for slum mapping. She also
highlighted the difference that as compared to what PLATINUM is proposing, Peru did
the surveys later but formalization first and hence established the rights first. Mr Gonzalo
said that this initial process of establishing rights was called diagnostics. The process
followed hence was: diagnose the informality; then integral formalization; and finally
individual formalization. Within diagnostics phase, information was gathered widely
from various government offices and landholders and then diagnostic cards as well as
maps were created
10. Ms. Swati Ramanathan also talked about SUNARP that it is the registration department
similar to the Stamps & Registration dept. in India and COFOPRI is mostly about the
formalization whereas SUNARP is about registration and has to work closely with
COFOPRI so as to not have conflicting records. However during the first phase of
diagnostics, no registration is done with the SUNARP and is done only in later stages
11. Mr Gonzalo explained in detail the process of formalization and its outcomes and said
that it is a continuous process that aims to bring urban informal population closer to
central government, integrate them into the formal economy and facilitate provision of
certain basic urban services such as water and electricity to such human settlements,
provide possibility to access to credit and foremost, allow the legal right to those who
deserve it. In terms of the numbers, he said that in 2006, about 2 million lots were still left
in Peru to be diagnosed and formalized. Since 1996, about 1.5 million were already
diagnosed though they not all were formalized. Knowing such a number allows and helps
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in planning and budgeting better and ahead in time. COFOPRI hopes to diagnose 1.2 to
1.3 million more lots and formalize about 0.8 million of them by 2011
12. Mr Peter Rabley of International Land Systems gave a presentation on solutions for land
administration. He touched upon the framework that ties land policy, land legislations,
land administration and management and land governance. He highlighted the importance
of spatial data and then moved on to describe the principles of land systems. He
emphasized that land Information is not well-integrated into the overall information
workflow of the rest of the government which causes data redundancy, inefficiency,
inaccuracy, and higher cost thus increasing the workload. There is a need to integrate
existing land systems to meet the demand, increase public access, transparency and
enhance revenue generation. For solutions, he said that modernizing institutions, and
legislations, using spatial referencing, increased awareness and use of technology and
better data management were a few among many.
13. He emphasised that technology is one of the solutions but is not the silver bullet and it
cannot on its own resolve all the problems. Technology with innovation will be required
which can address the complexities that are involved in land issues and it has to be fit for
purpose and shouldn’t be over ambitious. He mentioned some of the key technological
methods being used. He also gave an insight into the world perspectives including China
and ex-Soviet Union. He said that by innovating with better survey and mapping methods
costs can be brought down. With increased volumes economies of scale can be achieved
that bring down the cost and this is possible through better and innovative use of
technology.
14. Presenting on the lessons learned, he said that spatial data is key to property rights and it
can be used for many other development needs and it has to be collected just once and
then used many times over. He said that there can be various modes of spatial data tools
and gathering approaches and scales and accuracies can be adapted to fit for purpose.
Governance is key for better maintenance and partnerships with private sector will be
very helpful to develop and sustain spatial data.
15. He also added that strong political will is the key to success for reform and institutional
cooperation to take place. He said that incentives will always overpower disincentives
and emphasized that legal and procedural reform along with development of human
resources needs to complement institutional reforms such as single executive agencies for
the reform.
16. He said that land needs to be given a focus that is similar to other infrastructure needs
such as roads.
17. Shri T Koshy also made a presentation on technology infrastructure. He drew from his
experience on issuing titles not for lands but for share certificates which had similar
challenges. He said that two strong pillars for a GLT system are: the legal framework
including process, procedures and institutions; and technology which is the facilitator for
efficiently carrying out the processes. He talked about the difficulties in present
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procedures of land systems such audit trails, paper records etc that can be simplified with
the help of technology. He talked of two kinds of master databases one that will identify
properties and the other that will identify ownership and these databases will have
uniquely identifiable data attributes for property location, ownership etc. A component to
track the transactions would also be needed. He also talked about various other
components such documents and work flow management, various linkages with other
departments and their technological infrastructure, and the benefits for starting GLT
system. He also shed brief light on institutional structure needed to manage this kind of
technology infrastructure.
18. Shri Atul Sharma from his experience said that one of the biggest challenges for the
purpose of titling would be make the verification of ownership and other land transactions
and charges fool proof as even after a property being registered for 30-40 years, its
ownership is challenged and it can come under litigation.
19. There was considerable discussion on the use of Unique Property Identification number
(UPIN) and the benefits and rationale for having UPIN as the link between transactions
and land parcel details. UPIN thus could be efficiently used by the registration department
to fetch the details of any land transactions and automated registration should provide for
changes in title through registration as well. It was emphasised that registration should not
become a policing action or a planning tool and hence rationalization in the registration
fees and its other attributes is needed. The process of making updation and registration
needs to be made easy and should be embraced widely by the public. Issues of taxation of
land holding and not just mere land transaction were also highlighted.
20. The meeting ended with thanks for the international guests, Shri A.K. Mehta, JS(UD)
said that the inputs from the days meeting will be of great help in designing the
institutional and legal framework for India.
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List of Participants
Annexure
1. Shri Navin Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, Chairperson
2. Shri A.K. Mehta, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development
3. Shri SK Singh, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty
Alleviation,
4. Mr. Peter Rabley, President, International Land Systems, Inc (USA)
5. Mr.Cesar Augusto Berrios Ordonez, General Manager, World Bank, Peru
6. Mr.Gonzalo Jose Blanco Oyola, General Manager, Cofopri, Peru
7. Ms. E.P. Nivedita, Director, MOUD
8. Ms.Swati Ramanathan Chairperson, India Urban Space Foundation,
9. Shri N Venugopalan, Director , JNNURM, Ministry of Urban Development,
10. Shri Atul Sharma, Divisional Commissioner, Ajmer,Rajasthan ,
11. Shri Iqbal Khan, Rajasthan Administrative Service, Govt. of Rajasthan,
12. Shri Vinod Kumar Agrawal, Commissioner, Prohibition & Excise
Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh,
13. Shri Anjum Parwez, Commissioner, Municipal Admn, Govt. of Karnataka,
14. Dr.V.Raghavaswamy, Group Director, National Remote Sensing Agency,
15. Shri TR Raghunandan, IAS(Retd),
16. Shri T Koshy, NSDL Database Management Limited (NDML),
17. Shri Rajesh Mathur, ESRI India,
18. Shri Shubhagato Dasgupta, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
19. Shri Tarun Sharma, IUSF
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