National Land Commission Secretariat (NLCS) launched My NLCS system and Bhutan Land Dashboard (BLD) in Thimphu yesterday to provide enhanced public service delivery, maintain checks and balances, and to provide accurate data on land in the country.

My NLCS system has two components: online service tracking system and a mail management system.

Upon arrival of a customer at NLCS, comprehensive records of the person and his or her request of service will be collected during registration.

This data can be accessed by the customer care, who will provide the service requested. The system will so maintain and monitor the progress of a customer’s application.

NLCS’ information and communication technology officer, Tshering Wangchuk, said that the request would be forwarded to the relevant officials at NLCS for the service if required.

He added that the system would also maintain checks and balances and accountability among the NLCS officials. “If a customer visits in the future, we can provide immediate information on the status of the applications. We would have records of services availed earlier or pending requests of an applicant.”

In the past, with data maintained in hard copies and increasing land transactions at the headquarters and other sectors, records of applicants were often misplaced, which resulted in decreased service credibility.

Mail management system maintains records of mails, which were received in hard copies in the past.

Policy and Planning Division’s planning officer, Pema Thinley, said BLD maintains comprehensive cadastral information, records day to day land transactions, and provide statistics and reports with data inputs from rural and urban areas.

He added that this would help provide accurate and comprehensive information on land ownership, land use by land types and land encroachment, among others. “With accurate statistics and real time information from BLD, we can also make recommendations to planners and decision makers.”

In the past, reports and statistics were generated by different organisations or departments, handling different information. This often led to inaccurate dissemination of data.

The system could also function as a primary source of data for reports related to land in the country.

Although training to use BLD was provided in the past, NLCS is yet to provide training to use My NLCS system.

Work to develop the systems began before September 2017. My NLCS system, which will be implemented soon, was developed by in-house system developers.

Phurpa Lhamo