The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has urged the government to make registration of property easy for the businessmen through modern technology and one-window operation. LCCI President Almas Hyder said on Monday that registration of property is a big headache for the businessmen as it consumes long time and capital, therefore, it should be made business-friendly. He said they have to make ease-of-doing-business-related indicators better.
He said at present Pakistan ranked 161 in the global index as far as registration of property registration is concerned. He said businessmen would have to follow six procedures for the registration of property which take 25.5 days and cost 4.2 per cent of the property value. On the other hand, he said, New Zealand holds first position with just two procedures and a single day for property registration.
He said reliability of infrastructure, electronic database for recording land boundaries, transparency of information, geographic coverage, land dispute resolution and equal access to property rights are some of the areas which demand special attention. He recommended that a complete electronic database should be established for encumbrances (checking of lines, mortgages, restrictions and the like) and make it available online.
Almas Hyder said that inter-government electronic procedure should be introduced to obtain non-objection certificate (one government principle) to shift responsibility for the procedure from an applicant to government. He said an independent complaint resolution mechanism, related to issue of land and property registration, should be developed. He suggested that a schedule for fee should be made for accessing maps of land plots publicly available.
He suggested that tax on land transfer should be eliminated and one lump sum fee should be charged. He suggested that a local commission should be hired in exceptional circumstances as provided by the law.