Registration dept mulls clearing tenant agreements from any sub-registrar office in district

Pune: The state property registration department is considering allowing online leave-and-licence (tenant) agreements to be cleared by any sub-registrar office within a district instead of restricting the process to specific taluka offices. The move is aimed at reducing pendency and speeding up approvals.Officials stated that the system has already been implemented in districts such as Mumbai and Thane. Its implementation in Pune district, however, was delayed due to the use of two different software systems in the city and rural offices."There is a request to start the initiative in the district after addressing the software issues. In other districts like Mumbai and Thane, the system has already been rolled out to clear documents," a registration department official said.The proposal comes after complaints last week about a backlog of tenant registration documents across sub-registrar offices in Pune city. Joint district registrar Santosh Hingane had issued instructions to offices to expedite clearances. "A little over 3,000 documents were pending, and sub-registrars and staff worked on Saturday to clear them. We have also sent a request to the main office to start the same initiative for Pune, allowing any office to clear documents," Hingane told TOI.Officials said the move is aimed at addressing delays, with some applications taking more than a week — and in some cases up to 10 days — to be cleared, even though the stipulated processing timeline is 24 hours.Citizen groups had flagged the delays, pointing out that registered leave-and-licence agreements are required for several official purposes, including address proof and police verification.At present, while agreements are filed online, the clearance is handled only by the designated sub-registrar's office for that specific area. This often results in an uneven workload — some offices receive very few applications while others are flooded with them, leading to backlogs.The move, if implemented, will be part of the department's "one district, one registration" approach, which allows citizens to register property documents from any sub-registrar office in the district."There were hardly any registrations at some offices, while others were flooded with applications. This led to pendency. Additionally, technical glitches occurred in some offices, further contributing to the delay. These issues have now been addressed," a senior official from the state registration department said Citizens who previously faced delays said the move could help streamline the process."Last year, when I had to register my tenant agreement, it took more than 15 days. If the issues have now been rectified, it will speed up the process and ensure there is no pendency," said Mohit M, who registered his agreement.