It is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Those who look for files in government offices will vouch for it. If it is Wakf Board, the less said the better. Bundles of files wrapped in sheets of cloth can be found dumped in a room.
Take heart, for all this is going to change and fast. The beleaguered Board has decided to clean up the Aegean stables. In six months flat, all files will be hopefully computerised. Thereafter, looking for a file will be just a click away. The Board has records dating back to a century and above. The records mostly pertain to ‘umur-e-mazhabi'. It also boasts of marriage data as old as 300 years. All this is contained in thousands of files stored year wise.
The Board has taken up the ambitious programme of computerising all this. “Data about wakf property can even be accessed by public,” said Syed Ghulam Afzal Biabani, chairman, Wakf Board.
The Central Wakf Council has sanctioned Rs. 2 crore to State Wakf Board for the computerisation programme. Of this, Rs. 27 lakh has already been released.
Presently, the Wakf Board is caught in lost and found game as far as files are concerned. Important files get misplaced or totally vanish often with the collusion of staff. After computerisation all this will be hopefully a thing of the past.
Not just this. The Board also proposes to go for the Global Positioning System to safeguard its huge property. The richest Board in south India, it has 1.45 lakh acres of open land worth crores of rupees. But unfortunately half of this is under encroachment. In some cases, the Board is not even aware of the extent of its own property.
To overcome this problem all the wakf property is planned to be linked with the GPS technology so that location becomes hassle free. “Once this is done we can pinpoint our property easily,” says Mr. Biabani. Move over cynics – the Wakf Board is in for an image makeover.
