Calcutta, April 16: Bengal will seek to update land-ownership records and speed up the conversion and mutation processes in its first exercise in 60 years to clean up a jungle of messy data and red tape.

Mission Bhoomi will provide a “comprehensive picture of plots and ownership across the state, which have been historically complex”, land and land reforms minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah said.

Multiple ownership deeds or the lack of any, as well as confusion over plots’ character and tax-payment status, has made the land transfer process in Bengal maddeningly tangled and slow for private individuals, investors and the government alike.

District and block-level land officials will be required to dispose of conversion and mutation applications in 21 days if it’s a rural plot and 41 days if it’s urban.

“Either way, there must be a decision. A rejected application can be re-submitted for a fresh hearing,” said a senior official of the land department.

Applications that have suffered delays at babus’ hands may now sometimes be granted automatic approval, officials said.

Official sloth, as well as collusion between babus, politicians and brokers, has created a backlog of 4.25 lakh applications in Bengal — representing over 1 per cent of all plots in the state.

Other than speed, the mission seeks transparency. It aims to stop fraud such as the multiple sale of plots for which, for instance, the tracts alongside EM Bypass in Calcutta are notorious. Like elsewhere in the state, owners often use forged documents or take advantage of officials’ failure to provide the necessary certificates.

Sources said that from now on, not only will the certificates be issued but the land records, also known as records of right (ROR), will show the sequence of character and ownership changes the plot underwent.

The mission also aims to have the certificate of mutation replaced with a copy of the new khatian — a reproduction of a page showing details of a plot. This will allow the buyer to check the seller’s claims.

Another goal is to merge the processes of mutation, a land department exercise, and registration, a finance department one, in the long term.

Senior officials were not willing to set a deadline for the mission’s completion — a hazardous job considering the state of work culture in Bengal. Sources said officials who dragged their feet on applications would be punished, but not too many people will be convinced after watching the fate of chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s “do it now” slogan.

Mollah’s department is to update the RORs across Bengal barring Calcutta, where the civic authorities look after land records. The exercise is expected to benefit tens of thousands of individuals as well as all government departments — especially industries, commerce, agriculture, power, fisheries and small-scale industries, which are attracting investments.

Many investors in Bengal are now tangled in intractable land-ownership problems and red tape, and are often forced to go to court or the police and — in extreme situations — take the help of local politicians or fixers.

“Once the updating is over, things will become smooth. The documents — those at our end as well as those with the people — will constitute standard reference points,” former land and land reforms secretary P.K. Agrawal said.