Stressing on preventing transactions and creation of third-party rights on lands owned by the state government and semi-government bodies, the state Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has suggested that these lands be added to a 'negative list' to prevent any illegal transactions on them. Expressing concern about instances where details of property-related documents were manipulated at the backend, the committee has also called for audit trail protocols to be strengthened. "The government often gives land on lease or through other means to many private persons or institutions for public purposes. However, there is no control by the government on whether the land is utilised for the stated purpose. Many a time, this land is sold without the state government's consent to others, sub-leased, let out for development and third-party interests are created on the land," said a report of the PAC, which was submitted to the state legislature on Wednesday. The committee, which is headed by senior Congress legislator Gopaldas Agarwal, said it had come across instances where the rules had been violated on many government lands. The report added that the sub-registrar offices had no records about such lands being given out by the state government or other bodies. These offices were also linked to each other, which ensured that when the documents for these transactions were submitted to the sub-registrar offices, they were registered without any oversight. "At present, the sub-registrar offices have no system of verifying the ownership of the land. Hence, even if the land is government-owned, its registration and transactions are done by the sub-registrar without any due diligence," the committee said, adding these offices also need to be empowered to reject these registrations. "The sub-registrar offices should be linked online to all government, semi-government and autonomous institutions and bodies. The link must have updated information of all government lands, their ownership, and purpose so that the sub-registrar offices can stop transactions on them," it demanded, noting that however, no such system had been developed so far. The report suggested that the negative list of properties, which covers transactions of properties prohibited by the Income Tax department, Enforcement Department and courts, be updated to cover lands owned by the state government, municipal corporations, and bodies like MHADA, CIDCO, MMRDA and MIDC. It added that an audit trail system be implemented to track any changes to the data and sought officials against the officials concerned. NECESSARY STEPS

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