RAWALPINDI: The deputy commissioner has given the revenue department until Feb 15 to unblock blocked khewats in the district.

A total of 6,489 khewats, which is a term used for reference numbers given to landowners regarding specinc land holdings, are blocked in the Rawalpindi district. L ast year, over 40,000 khewats were blocked because of mistakes during the computerisation of land records. While 33,000 of these were unblocked on July 1, 2016, the rest remain blocked and will be unblocked by Feb 15.

A meeting was held on Wednesday to review progress in this regard. It was chairedby Deputy Commissioner Talat Mehmood Gondal, and attended by officials from the land revenue department and revenue officials from the district`s seven tehsils.

The meeting was informed that 4,343 khewars in the Rawalpindi tehsil are still blocked, as are 85 in Gujar Khan, 679 in Kahuta, 208 in Taxila, 421 in Murree and 753 in Kallar Syedan. There are no blocked khewats in Kotli Sattian.

Mr Gondal said work to unblock the khewats should be expedited so people can buy and sell properties in their respective areas. He said the government wishes to facilitate people, andcomputerise land records in order to secure them so people do not have to visit various government of fices to get their land records.

He said the computerisation of land records has been sped up in the Rawalpindi district to correct mutation and land transaction errors in various sectors.

While explaining the land record computerisation issue, Mr Gondal said there were some technical faults in the computer system, but the records were checked, verified and issued to their owners in one month.

He said 33,000 cases of blocked khewats had been resolved in the district. A Reporter