The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Towards a faster, efficient and transparent delivery of services, the National Land Commission (NLC) launched the Urban E-Sakor and Land Mortgage Systems on November 4 in Thimphu.
The services will available for the land owners in Thimphu and Gelephu thromdes and land transactions can be carried out from their own towns.
E-Sakor is an online comprehensive land information system comprising of map, thram and related information. Processing land transactions online is one of the primary applications of E-Sakor, whereby the land transactions from the dzongkhags and the thromdes will be submitted online to NLC for approval. The issue of lagthrams will also be decentralized to the local governments.
NLC Secretary Dasho Sangay Khandu expects that these initiatives will ease and accelerate land transactions.
The system will enable the transferor and transferee to monitor the progress or status of their land transaction, which should enhance the accountability and transparency of land transaction procedure through a public interface NLCS web portal.
The system has an inbuilt automated tier of check and balance mechanism to enable the local governments and NLC to strengthen the security of the land titles. Such a system was developed in consultation with the local governments and financial institutions. It will also maintain internet-based, reliable and up-to-date land mortgage information.
It primarily aims to eliminate multiple mortgaging of the same land, transaction of mortgaged land and various transactions on the mortgage that that financial institutions may want to process.
The Secretary said, “This will greatly enhance the efficiency and security of land mortgaging process, assuring access rights at appropriate levels of privileges to dealing officials in the financial institutions, the thromdes, and the NLC.”
On the commission’s future plans, the Secretary said the commission is under process of inventorying the available land that may be put to different developmental activities. He assured that it can be achieved through integration of the cadastral, topographical, land use land cover, digital elevation models and ground survey data.
“This will provide integrated solution for professionals and managers from various disciplines to formulate realistic plans and make informed decisions in planning, administration and management,” he added.
To further enhance the existing functions of E-Sakor, NLC has plans to enable land owners to view their thram and map information online from anywhere in the world.
The system will be used to detect if one’s plot is being illegally transacted without the owner’s knowledge, and at the same time, prospective buyers can access information about plots that they are interested to buy by verifying location, mortgage information, ownership type and acreage.
Talking on the limitations of the system for now, the Secretary said that fibre optic network needs to be in place in all the dzongkhags and thromdes for implementation as to establish land sector office and operationalize E-Sakor at the gewog level and take the land service delivery right to the backyard of the land owners.
In line with the provision of Land Act 2007 and the Royal Command, the NCRP was launched in 2008 starting with Lhuentse.
Technologically, NCRP uses the latest surveying instruments in the form of GNSS and the total stations. The surveyors implementing NCRP not only measure the property boundary, but all natural and cultural features are captured as well. The cadastral data model meets the requirements of the multipurpose cadastre with multiple dimensions. The cadastral maps and thrams with unique linkage between the two are captured and maintained in the state of art database.
The Secretary said that during the course of NCRP, thousands of pending transactions were cleared by delivering the service to the doorsteps of the people.
Till date, NCRP has been completed in all dzongkhags and Thimphu and Gelephu thromdes.
The digital cadastral and the Sathram databases generated through NCRP create an enabling environment for the introduction of E-Sakor system an internet based land conveyance system.
The rural E-Sakor system was launched in December 2012, last year and as of date it is operational in eight dzongkhags where new thrams have been issued.
The system has been successfully launched with technical assistance from DANIDA and support of various stakeholders such as ministry of works and human settlement, home ministry, agriculture and forest ministry, Thimphu thromde and the financial institutions.
