A pilot initiative with the Board of Revenue for enhancing the land management system and improving land records service delivery in KP. UN-Habitat developed in-house the Digital Land Information System using MIS and GIS technology and established the GIS Labs/SDC in Charsadda and Nowshera. UN-Habitat continues to provide technical assistance to BOR for replication and upscale of this initiative.

Year

2012

Location

Charsadda and Nowshera Districts (pilot)

Background
Secure land tenure and property rights are fundamental to shelter and livelihoods that serve as cornerstones for the realization of human rights and poverty reduction. Secure land rights are particularly important in helping reverse gender discrimination, social exclusion of vulnerable groups, and wider social and economic inequalities linked to inequitable and insecure access to land. It is well recognized that secure land and property rights for all are essential to reducing poverty, because they underpin economic development and social inclusion. Secure land tenure and property rights enable people in rural and urban areas to invest in improved homes and livelihoods. They also help to promote good environmental management, improve revenue collection, improve food security, and assist directly in the realization of human rights, including the elimination of discrimination against women, the vulnerable, indigenous groups and minorities.
In Pakistan with a population of 180 million, one of the bottlenecks in land and revenue administration is the complex and outdated records in addition to their manual processing and management. The procedure to obtain ownership details by a land owner is extremely difficult due to a number of reasons, such as a few designated Government officials (e.g. Patwari – the custodian of land revenue record) have full custody of the records and normally these officials are not easily available to the public. People have to spend a lot of time and money and most of the times resort to illegitimate means to get information about their land holding. Such information is needed for various reasons like a sale/purchase of their land, application for bank loans, for preparation of National Identity Cards, passports and other day to day related matters.

Role of UN-Habitat in Land in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

In Pakistan, UN-Habitat plays an important role in the areas of governance, environmental management, disaster mitigation, post conflict rehabilitation, urban safety, water management, land property rights and poverty reduction. UN-Habitat has been involved with Provincial Disaster areas (earthquake, flood and militancy affected) providing technical and financial support in providing shelters constructions and promoting disaster risk reduction designs for urban/rural settlements and interventions in land and property matters.
UN-Habitat after post 2005 earthquake successfully completed distribution of safer land to more than 14,000 families in the earthquake affected areas of Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) under the Programme for Landless People of the Earthquake affected areas of Pakistan; for this intervention a very dynamic Land Information Management System was developed in-house and the project was later declared as best practice.
Digitization of Land Records in Khyber PakhtunkhwaUnder the Pakistan Settlements Flood Recovery Project, UN-Habitat developed two pro-poor tools in shape of land guide which contains definition of all terminologies used in the revenue system of Pakistan and a Training Manual on Housing, Land and Property Rights (HLP). A total of 1,307 different stakeholders have been trained in different cities of Pakistan including female lawyers and Patwaris. 76% of these trainees are women.
Under a Letter of Intent signed with the Board of Revenue (BoR) of Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, UN-Habitat initiated the Digitization of Land Revenue Record (DLRR) initially in District Charsadda and later extended the work in District Nowshera. The pilot phase started in April 2012 with the establishment of state-of-the art laboratories in these two places. The BoR of Provincial Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has started replicating the computerization of land records based on the MIS developed, tested and placed by UN-Habitat. This process has been undertaken as part of Phase-I by BoR in 7 additional Districts of Peshawar, Mardan, Abbottabad, Mansehra and D.I.Khan. UN-Habitat is supporting the BoR in developing management information systems for the first-ofits-kind Service Delivery Centers in these districts starting with Mardan.
By July 2014 the first SDC would be inaugurated in Mardan by the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The BoR is further seeking UN-Habitat technical assistance in digitizing land records staring with Mardan and Peshawar Districts in order to bring precise accuracy in land parcels. The BoR through the Planning & Development Department is seeking funding for UN-Habitat for this purpose and has already submitted a Project Concept Note to the World Bank for seeking funding from the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF).

The Proposed Land Digitization Programme for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The proposed digitization project submitted by the BoR to the World Bank for the MDTF funding aims to deliver the following fourunique tangible accomplishments within its 5 year implementation time frame:
1. A set of accurate and updated records: This will benefit individuals for easy and affordable access to their land record, especially with the female/children/persons with disabilities and other landowners.
2. An electronic system that reinforces accountability and provides real picture to the government with regards to details of exact land holdings: This will be serve as baseline and effective tool for tax collection which is the actual mandate of revenue department. The common practice of tax evasion will be addressed by the government by enforcing tax generation as per country law, thus increasing the national income.
3. Capacity building of Government counterparts: Officials of the “Revenue and Estate Department” of the provincial government will be trained and capacities increased on managing digitized land records.
4. A digitization process that ensures transparency and accountability in land management: Records of land rights (Jamabandi) and Mussavi (Field Map) will be scanned and digitized. In the old and manual record, individual shares of land owners are not indicated, whereas, during this process the share of each and every land owner is being noted against their
names for facilitation.
Implementation Strategy: The project will integrate land information and maps into GIS to form a standard for the preparation of land use boundaries, to support local Governments in collecting revenues/taxes, and to be used for both government and private entities (after getting approval from the competent authority). The information taken into GIS will consist of map layers such as Land Map, Public Land Map, Land Evaluation Map, Building Map, Index Map, Land Use Map and Land Classification Map. Hence, the document data of land titles and spatial data is digitized. Finally, the data will be stored in the GIS system as a central land information for thecountry.
After the digitization of land revenue record at the district level, Service Delivery Centres (SDCs) will be established at Tehsil/District level in which the Provincial Governments have decided on the location of such centers. These SDCs will be integrated centers for sharing land information and maps between the Revenue and State Department and organizations concerned. Under the same intervention, the Patwaris (land revenue officials) and other land officials will be trained and will be able to work on the online software. This online service will provide computer mapping, digital cadastral database, and full cost recovery, value added services,
rationalization and transfer of land ownership, government restructuring and integration of survey and land title processes. Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting: Performance and financial management schedules will be set through donor agreement(s). The project is intended to function on the basis of single or multiple donors providing both financial resources and considerable in-kind contributions. Regular internal and external evaluations will be undertaken analyzing progress against objectives, and delivery of results. Auditing will be done according to the schedule of donor(s), internal UN-Habitat audit structures and periodic UN Secretariat
audits.