Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Hon’ble Minister of State (I/C) for Housing & Urban Affairs, has urged that all our organisations should undertake efforts to identify more and more activities to be automated and free of human interface.  “The power of technology is immense and there is no reason that India, which has a formidable capacity in the area of software technologies, cannot harness this strength to our advantage”, he added.  He was speaking at the launch of e-Dharti Geo portal here today in the presence of Shri Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs and senior officers of the Ministry. The Minister launched the service to provide Property Certificate by Land & Development Office (L&DO) through e-Dharti Geo Portal. The certificate includes property details; viz. land type, property type, date of allotment, property status, sub-type, plot area, date of execution of lease deed, property address, details about present lessee, litigation status, as well as cadastral map. The Property Certificate will be available on nominal fee of ₹1,000/- and can be accessed by public by visiting the L&DOwebsite: www.ldo.gov.in. Shri Puri complimented Dr. Neeta Verma, DG,NIC for bringing out this portal. Through the Certificate, the lessee of the property will be able to get the basic details of his/her property along with map showing its location. This measure will also help a prospective purchaser to ascertain the details of the property as well as any suit or proceeding is pending in respect of the property. This situation is a major source of litigation in the sale and purchase of property. This measure while benefitting the general public, particularly old aged, ailing and as well as women & widows, will also help in avoiding unnecessary litigations.L&DO is integrating GIS based mapping of individual properties with e-DhartiGeo Portal to make property details GIS enabled. L&DO is dealing with approx. 60,000 properties, which include commercial, residential, industrial & institutional properties. Of the 60,000 properties, 49,000 are rehabilitation properties which were given on leases to persons displaced from erstwhile East & West Pakistan. Majority of properties, had been digitally mapped and are in process of validation. This application will not only benefit the public but also the Government in getting to know the actual status of its vacant properties whether there is any encroachment on the said property, etc.L&DO, as part of its initiative to bring about transparency in its working, as well as obviate human interface and restrict time frame in disposal of cases, is fastmoving towards digitisation of its processes and had already started to accept online applications for substitution, mutation, conversion, gift permission, sale permission & mortgage permission. These applications cover almost 95% of total applications received by L&DO. Besides L&DO has taken a unique initiative to update land records of freehold property.  Presently, property records are not updated, once the tenure of the property is converted from lease hold to free hold.  This measure will help in updating the records of land-owning agency as well as give title to the present owner besides bringing about transparency and predictability in property transactions. The initiative taken by L&DO will go a long way in streamlining its working and make it more public friendly, accountable, efficient and transparent.The Minister also distributed Property Certificate to the applicants through virtual conference. The applicants thanked the Hon’ble Minister under whose guidance L&DO has taken the initiative to digitise its services and issuance of Property Certificate.  The applicant appreciated the initiative as a real public centric approach by a public authority which while being a public welfare measure will give them record of their property which in normal circumstances is very difficult to access.