The patwari culture

In this article, I will briefly go through the patwari system - as the prevailing Land Revenue Administration system is commonly known in our country, the culture it has generated with its associated evils and would try to build on the requirements of the modern-day needs that a viable titling registration system would promise, the philosophical underpinning of which I have discussed in my previous article published on the 8th of June 2011, in these columns.
Since land is a provincial subject in Pakistan, I would take the example of Punjab for the sake of taking into consideration a standard model; Punjab's system is considered somewhat 'maintained', 'nearest' to the 'prescribed' standard operating procedures. Almost a similar legal framework is in place in the other provinces as a relevant legal framework had a uniformed applicability in the old days of the One Unit, when areas comprising present day Pakistan had been arranged into a single province of West Pakistan.
Pakistan has a land administration system inherited from the British, involving rules and regulations regarding sale, purchase and the use of land resources, mainly linked to the collection of land revenue. The present land legislation - which is constituted mainly of the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967 (mutation) and the Registration Act of 1908 (registration of document) - does not profess to provide for a State certificate of title to land under the aegis of a public authority. The records of rights and other documents based on the land records, by virtue of provisions in the land laws are presumed to be accurate. Many court rulings have also maintained that entries in the land revenue records are contestable, that the revenue records are not documents of title, and that it is permissible to challenge the entries for determining the title to land. In a nutshell, no title registration of property is maintained by any authority in the country, which is not only a major reason for the huge number of disputes in the justice system, but also acts as a chief impediment to the investment.
The West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967 explicitly excludes urban areas from the preview of the revenue authority dealing with the mainly agriculture land. Thus, the need to create an Urban Land Title Registration System that can provide a State Certificate of Title under the guarantee of a public authority.
Everybody, from the rulers of this country to the man in street is doomed to pay homage to a one-man superpower known as the patwari. That the system is corrupt and inefficient to the core is known to all. Policymakers and the public alike are sick of the current system but why has the change not taken place? It is estimated that there are over a million land-related disputes pending court resolution in Pakistan composing 40 percent of all court disputes (FIAS, 2005b). Court proceedings take years to resolve. I will, in these columns, also analyse basic reasons that prevent a change to take place, particularly in the context of the change that needs to be introduced ie a Land Titling Registration System; an initiative more significant than the one Todar Mull devised for the Mughal imperial state centuries ago.
Despite clear provisions in the law and an explicitly defined supervision and control mechanism in secondary legislation, a breakdown of accountability mechanism in public sector in Pakistan, in general, has transformed the role of patwari into a powerful stakeholder despite being a low-ranked state functionary in theory. The patwari is traditionally entrusted with a host of official and "para-official" duties that take the overwhelming chunk of his time. Patwari is the pivot of all activities, be it the preparation of voters' lists, immunisation campaigns, electoral rallies of the ruling parties, lining of water courses, or official and demi-official tours of the dignitaries to the area, or to effectively coup with the emergency situation in the wake of natural disasters. This not only keeps him overburdened but also provides him with an excuse to play hard-to-get, making patwari the virtual monopoliser on land-related matters.
The complex system of maintenance of records, the culture of secrecy surrounding all the governmental documents, cumbersome business processes, hard-to-decipher language of revenue records and general apathy towards rights of citizens has added to the mystification of land records, creating a fear in the minds of the people about potential manipulation of these records. That is how the patwar culture comes into play.
Generally, patwar khana is seldom in a passable shape and the patwari is almost never present there. The landholders have to chase him all over the area, often for days, before even being able to grease his palm for any official business. World Bank's calculated time for obtaining a fard in Pakistan is six weeks, on an average.
Hence, getting hold of the patwari and making him discharge his official duties is a cumbersome and costly affair. It is hard enough for the middle income male sections of the community, let alone the poor, the marginalized and the female members of the community.
According to a study, people rank the corruption and inefficiency-related transaction costs as the most important issue regarding access to land records. The informal payments, the time lost in tracing the revenue officials and the physical and psychological strains caused to the landowners and tenets under the present system amount to very high transaction costs. The actual cost of getting hold of a simple fard of a genuine record may range between Rs. 200 to Rs. 20,000, depending upon the level of desperation with which the applicant needs it. It may go much higher where there is even a semblance of some sort of legal gap or clerical mistake in the record. In case of some fraud, this cost may go up to millions of rupees. There is another aspect of this story: government charges fee at the rate of Rs 20/Khatauni for rural areas and Rs. 40/ Khatauni in urban areas plus Rs 100 for an urgent fard, supposed to be delivered in 24 hours; patwaris rarely deposit this amount in government accounts, amounting to loss of millions of rupees. It also happens that for a beefing up of graft money, the patwari arranges for the entries in the register of mutations by personally visiting the Qanungo and the Revenue Officer, thus cutting short the procedure of Revenue Officer's visiting the village and holding a public assembly there. In case of reluctance by the mutating parties to pay the graft, the mutation may get stuck, for indefinite periods, at any of the steps.
At present, the people are paying exorbitant costs for a service, which does not enjoy any level of reliability. Almost all landowners I have come across in my professional career have been of the opinion that no matter how high, the cost of the products and services of some improved system that replaces the patwari system, can never be higher than what they are paying at the moment. People need value for their money spent to obtain a service; they are willing to pay a premier price for a service that has legal backing, is prompt and responsive, having transparent operations.
The institutional set-up provided in the Land Records' Manual for the management of paper-based records is, in theory, very robust and a remarkable example of a system having checks and balances. The efficacy of the system however, has fallen prey to increased workload as well as corrupt practices and political interferences. Many occupants of the patwaris' offices are political appointees and do not possess the requisite knowledge and skills for performing their official functions. They often hire retired patwaris or young aspirants for the jobs, who perform these functions on their behalf and the patwaris merely provide the official endorsement. Moreover, the existing system of check and balance is largely internal to the revenue department, and in part, it does not work, because different tiers of the department are 'perceived' to be recipients of parts of the graft. It is said even if an angel is made patwari, he would indulge in all sorts of evils the system dictates a patwari to do. Therefore, need is to target the system, associated malevolence will automatically be taken care of.
An analysis of the legal framework and relevant laws under which patwari system operates, dispels this well-entrenched impression that the patwari being indispensable cannot be replaced. The law surprisingly dictates otherwise. The West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967 excludes the site of a town or village from its preview under section 3 of the very Act. Para 7.57-A of the Land Records Manual lays down the procedure to put areas that have become 'urban', if we broadly use this term for the collection of the constructed area, comprising of 'adjacent' erected buildings, out of the preview of the District Collector, and thus patwaris. Consequently, in all urban areas of the Punjab, there is no legal justification for patwaris to maintain or even keep the land revenue records. Good news for at least two parties: the general masses of Punjab suffering at the hands of this system and their hardworking Chief Servant Shehbaz Sharif.
Quite interestingly, the Revenue department of the West Pakistan issued a memorandum No. 3417-68/1203-(S), dated the 8th July, 1968, addressed to all the Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners in the West Pakistan except those of Karachi, Hyderabad, and Khairpur Divisions for ensuring implementation of excluding the urban areas from the preview of the District Collector under relevant provisions of the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967. In the last 43 years none could ever acted accordingly. The memorandum expressively stated that under section 56 (1) (d) of the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act 1967, Land on which Property Tax under the West Pakistan Urban Immovable Property Tax Act, 1958 (West Pakistan Act V-1958), was payable, was exempted from the assessment of Land Revenue. This Act came into operation in the province of West Pakistan with effect from 1st January 1968. The memorandum further clarified, "Areas which have been built-up may be treated as 'abadi deh' for the purpose of revenue records and further maintenance of record in respect thereof should be discontinued." "While preparing for new jamabandi (Jamabandi is a register containing record of rights in land, prepared once in every four years) Tehsildar/ Naib Tehsildar should personally inspect the existing abadi deh and compile a report about the field/survey numbers (Khasra numbers) which were covered by buildings during the last four years" and " then submit a proposal to include that area in the abadi deh for orders of the Collector. After obtaining orders, the Tehsildar/Naib Tehsildar should make entries in the new jamabandi (quadrennial Register Haqdaran- Zamin) accordingly." The maintenance of record in such areas thus comes to an end; the record is closed and supposed to be consigned in the official record room. Reminders to that effect kept on being issued sporadically to revenue authorities in the districts but in vain.
It may be noted that if proper implementation on the above-mentioned provisions of the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967 had been ensured by concerned revenue authorities, there would not have found the traces of patwari's presence in the thickly populated urban areas like that of Ichra and Gari Shahu etc, for instance, and from say the entire city of Lahore, the downtown of all cities, and built-up areas in the province. It is further noted that most of frauds the Patwari purports are in the urban areas where the property prices has grown staggeringly high over years. This is one aspect of the situation.
What does it entail? In urban areas, legally speaking there remains no existing arrangement of maintenance of record of rights, rendering the precious urban properties virtually devoid of any semblance of keeping and maintaining of record of different rights, albeit for fiscal purposes. For the purpose of tax collection in the Rating Area, Excise and Taxation department, nonetheless, maintains a basic record of properties in the shape of PT-1 form, and their occupants for their tax collection purpose. Such information is mainly based on physical surveys of properties and not retrieved and backed by some credible information regarding titling record or record of rights of the given property. Not even relative ownership proof exists in urban areas, leaving the owner to run from pillar to post if some fraud occurs. The properties that are included in the lal lakeer/ red circle of the abadi deh (abadi deh is the residential area of a village, and lal lakeer/ red circle is the line that is drawn in revenue record to encircle that residential area) are allotted a single khasra (survey number) and forthwith preparation of record of rights under West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967 for such encircled properties is stopped, exposing them to exploitation and fraud. It may be noted here that 'lal lakeer' exists in the majority of about 25,892 villages of the Punjab. It is also worth mentioning that not a single organisation exists to look after record keeping of the urban properties for whatever purpose. This is the other facet of same coin. It is, therefore, not surprising that the implementation of exclusion of built-up area from the preview of West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967, despite expressive directions of the Board of Revenue, Punjab have hardly been done by practitioners of this Act because of the socio-economic, legal, and administrative repercussions and costs associated with such execution of relevant provisions. Its psychological burden also deterred Revenue Authorities to touch this perceived 'sensitive issue'. The situation further exasperated owing to pathologically retarded growth of our legal institution in the aftermath of frequent Marshal Laws in the country.
Although no direct law and organisation deal with the record keeping and maintenance of urban immovable property and its title thereof, yet many provisions of existing laws and many components of existing organisations operating at the provincial and district levels can be used to make for this gap of maintaining credible record of urban properties and their rightful owners with conferment of clear titles.
This research will further go to suggest the creation of a new set-up, in a phased manner, for creating and operating an urban land titling registration system out of the presently working organisations, resources, and legal framework. In the following articles we will see how this can be translated into a reality? We will draw, discuss, and justify relevant provisions of existing legal framework for the creation and deployment of an Urban Land Titling Registration System, within existing resources.
Before we further expand our discussion it may be pertinent to have a brief analysis of the reasons that impeded change in our context? Experimental research in cognitive and motivational psychology reveals a vast array of biases that tend to preserve the status quo: deformation professionelle (a tendency to see things from the perspective of the conventions of one's profession); projection bias (a tendency to assume that others share similar beliefs to oneself); the bandwagon effect (a tendency to do or believe the same as others); false consensus effect (a tendency to expect others to agree with oneself); discounting (to prefer immediate over long-term payoffs); and, finally, the well-documented and pervasive effects of in-group favouritism and out-group derogation, group-think, and over-confidence. (Janis 1972; Jervis 1976; Kahneman et al. 1982; Vertzberger 1990; Tetlock 1998; Johnson 2004).
Numerous organisational biases also predispose us to maintain the status quo. Bureaucratic procedures, vested interests, competition for promotions, sunk costs, access to the elite, and turf wars over budgets, perks, and responsibilities favour a rigid focus on past events and successes, and a rigid avoidance of rocking the boat to advocate some new and unproven revision of strategy (Kovacs 1997; Allison and Zelikow 1999; Van Evera 2003).
Institutions have little incentive to self-criticise or evaluate their own performance. The entire institutional environment is hostile to adaptation: "Myths, false propaganda, and anachronistic beliefs persist in the absence of strong evaluative institutions to test ideas against logic and evidence, weeding out those that fail" (Van Evera 2003, 163).
A further problem with organisations is that the "sensors" - the people with their ears to the ground - are disjointed from the decision-making structure. Leaders are sometimes the last to know about impending (or even actual) disasters. The middle managers or those below them are the ones who deal on an everyday basis with the outside world and are therefore more likely to detect demand for change, or to recognise that old methods are no longer appropriate. Organisational and bureaucratic impediments to change appear to be severe. Eventually, budgets or political obstacles get in the way.
Above-mentioned explains why we have not succeeded to get rid of patwar culture. The above discussion also enlists many of the reasons that are involved in the failure of repeated efforts of computerisation of land records; first effort was undertaken in 1974 at Khanewal. The same also explains why a single success story of a City District Government that has produced more than 50,000 computer generated fards in last 6 years up till now, capturing biometric signature of landowners and their photographs to be incorporated into the electronic database, in 45 villages of a tehsil in Punjab, in computerising of Land Revenue Records, remained unnoticed?
The purpose of the above-mentioned is to seriously get all those aspect incorporated in the design and implementation of the proposed model of a Land Titling Registration system I will detail out in next articles so that it could make a different story this time around.
The principal objective of implementing a new land title registration system would be to provide certainty of title to land, in order to facilitate efficient property transactions, encourage investment and improvement, reduce disputes and uncertainty over the ownership of land, and increase access of the under-served part of the population, through productive credit, to the wider economy of the city.
In the next articles we will see what is transpiring in the world in the context of our proposed titling registration system to draw an analogy for our proposed model analysing the information our current system collects and how this information qualifies to instantly create a title register on the pattern of modern title registries of the world, replacing the patwari system in urban areas, in the first place? This discussion assumes special importance in the wake of the news that the Punjab government is thinking of creating a new department for tax collection. When we will proceed towards conclusion of our analysis, we will see how in the Punjab, one third of 8,000 patwaris, hundreds of officials of the Excise and Taxation department and many others become available for the duty other than the one they are performing or not so well performing, when our proposed urban titling registration system would be put in place.