Land records of the state of Maharashtra will now be easily accessible with the development of an application that will help assimilate and store all the records in a single database. The National Informatics Centre (NIC), Maharashtra, has facilitated the availability of this database by helping the state government to collect and coordinate almost 1 TB of data. The pilot tests for this application were initiated at the tehsil level and covered the computerisation of about 357 tehsils. The state-level data was prepared gradually. "The training was a huge task for us", says Moize Hussain Hussain Ali, state informatics officer, NIC, Maharashtra State Centre. The training was rendered in the form of workshops to NIC officers at the district level.

The land records system (Mahabhulekh) is now completely web enabled. "At the village level, information like the name of the farmer, the amount of land he/she owns and the type of house he/she lives in helps the state government in making policy decisions. This application will also help the government in getting data on families below the poverty line," informed Ali.

Meanwhile, the NIC is also taking an initiative to enable an online application process for property cards at the district level in Mumbai. With this, the property owner can fill the application form online and collect the property card after paying the required fee. The Centre has also enabled online processing of 35 out of 43 consumer forum networks’ upload comments and opinions.

The NIC is also in the initial stages of developing a state WAN for the government. The pilot for this is being tested in the district of Hingoli and involves the deployment of the software 'Planplus', which will enable various state departments to submit their annual budgets online. The Centre is also thinking of developing a ‘Common Integrated Police’ application for online FIR registration. "We are also working on a web based online application that will put the electoral data in the public domain," concluded Ali.