An e-government initiative has expedited land acquisition for highways with 37,078 hectares of land being acquired in 21 months as against 33,005 hectares in the previous four years, the government said on Friday.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had launched the portal, BhoomiRashi, on April 1, 2018.
"In 21 months (from 01.04.2018 to 31.12.2019), nearly 37,078 hectares of land has been notified (u/s 3D of the National Highways Act, 1956) by National Highways Authority of India as compared to 33005 hectares notified between 2014-15 to 2017-18 (four years). So far, nearly 4,16,000 number of persons have visited the portal," the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a statement.
The BhoomiRashi Portal lunched as a major e-Governance initiative of the Ministry and has expedited significantly the process of land acquisition for National Highways, making it error-free & more transparent with notifications at every stage being processed on real time basis, the statement said.
In 2018-19, 2,920 land acquisition notifications have been issued using the portal as against an average of 1,000 notifications issued per year in the previous two years, the statement said, adding, so far, nearly 4,16,000 number of persons have visited the portal.
The portal has been integrated with the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) for depositing the compensation in the account of affected/ interested persons on real-time basis.
The statement said this integration has resulted in avoiding the parking of huge public funds in the account of Competent Authority for Land Acquisition.
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"Already payments to 2,111 beneficiaries, for Rs 172,64,04,540/- has been made through PFMS in 11 states (Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal) using the portal," the statement said.
The BhoomiRashi portal model is replicable and can be used by state governments as well as by Ministries which directly acquire land under their relevant legal provisions, it said.
Earlier, acquisition of land for the purpose of National Highway projects, payment of compensation to the land owners etc. were done manually by physical movement of documents in the form of files.
However, in that procedure some constraints like delay in issuing notification, errors in the land/ area details etc were being faced.
In order to overcome these issues, to cut short delays and avoid parking of public funds with the Competent Authority for Land Acquisition (CALA), Ministry has developed a web based Utility BhoomiRashi to fully digitize and automate the entire process of land acquisition.