Goa has become the first state of India to win a global prize for excellence in maintaining robust, reliable and people-friendly land records. The award was presented by the Geospatial World Forum at a conference held at Rotterdam, Netherlands. ‘Dharnaksh’ is an e-governance project of the Goa state directorate of settlement and land records. The e-governance project, launched in June 2012 has so far received 29,278 visitors. The data is accessed using a website which allows users to view and print extracts of land records in Goa, all this while sitting at any part of the world. 15% of the users of the website are from abroad.

The Goa Land Revenue (Inspection, Search and supply of copies of Land Records) Rules have been amended to provide legal validity for issue of digitally signed documents.  This will enable ‘Dharnaksh’ to take a new step in early June 2013 by allowing users to download digitally signed copies of land records. The award ceremony program also comprised of awards in other categories and had winners from the Australia, Azerbaijan, China, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, UAE and the USA.

Tags: dharnaksh, Goa, world excellence award