Calcutta: The Mamata Banerjee government's plan to introduce mandatory mutation at the time of land deals has been shelved as the authorities have realised that such a system cannot be introduced unless land records in the state are updated.

Updating the land records - with details of the present owners - is easier said than done because of the landowners' reluctance to register their names through mutation.

This reluctance, said an official, is not restricted to any specific area and has been a state-wide phenomenon for years.

"If the new system was brought in without updating land records, it could have hit land transactions across the state as only owners, who have land parcels registered under their names, could sell land. If the land transactions were hit, it would have left an impact on the state's earnings of more than Rs 4,000 crore through stamp duty registration," said a senior official.

Sources said the government had planned to introduce a system called "automatic mutation" as part of its revenue augmentation drive.

"Merging mutation with the land transaction would have ensured that a person pays the mutation fee at the time of buying a land parcel. The new system would have ended the problem of people avoiding mutation after buying land and ensured additional Rs 500 crore through mutation fee," said an official.

The reality, however, prompted the government to shelve the plan for the time being.

According to the officer, the name of buyer is registered in land records once he or she completes the mutation process, but most people, mainly in rural areas, avoid mutation as it has not been mandatory till now.

So far, land could be bought from a person who had the title deed (commonly known as dalil) of the plot. "The change in the title ownership was deemed optional and many buyers avoided it as it involved a fee and a lot of paperwork," the official said.

At present, one has to pay Rs 40 as mutation fees for each decimal of farmland and Rs 500 for one decimal of commercial plots. The fee for commercial plots is Rs 1,000 a decimal if the size of the plot is more than 10 decimals.

But the manner in which the government wanted to change the system, only those with their names recorded as owners could sell land.

"As most land owners did not go in for mutation in rural areas after buying or inheriting a land parcel over the years, land transactions could have been hit badly," said a source.

In an attempt to introduce the new system, the "Records of Rights" - a document call parcha in common parlance which mentions the name of the original owner of a plot - were digitised in all 341 blocks of the state.

"The digitised land records were to be linked to the registration offices that work under the finance department. According to the plan, once fresh registration is done after the new system is introduced, the land department would have got theinformation online. The mutation certificate could be issued within 48 hours. The buyer was supposed to deposit the mutation fee while registering the land," said the official.

Sources said the new system could be successful only if the state government ensured that all due mutation processes were complete and the names of the present owners of land parcels were available online.

After realising the challenge, the government is planning a pilot project before launching the new system.

"The pilot project will tell us the aspects we have to work on before launching the system across the state. We will soon take a call on the pilot project," said a finance department official.