The Punjab government has suspended its digital Green Certificate land record system for six months following concerns raised by lawmakers over land transactions and the overall management of property records. Provincial Minister Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman announced the suspension during a session of the Punjab Assembly, telling members that several issues had emerged since the system was first implemented.
Opposition Leader Rana Aftab Ahmed criticized the digital land record process during the session, alleging that corruption remains widespread within the Land Department. He questioned the overall effectiveness of the Green Certificate system, arguing that the traditional patwari based system had worked more reliably for land related transactions, and pointed to what he described as the absence of an effective one-window mechanism for handling property sale and purchase records under the digital system.
Other lawmakers raised additional concerns during the debate. MPA Raja Shaukat Bhatti said the system had, in some cases, shown multiple individuals listed as owners of the same two-acre plot, pointing to data accuracy issues within the digital records. MPA Amjad Ali Javed said he had previously warned the Senior Member Board of Revenue about potential problems with the Green Certificate system before the current concerns came to light. The Punjab Assembly Speaker also raised a procedural question during the session, asking whether the provincial government held the authority to suspend a system that had already been approved by the assembly, and said any decision to suspend an assembly approved measure should involve the legislature directly rather than being taken unilaterally by the executive branch.
The suspension marks the second setback for Punjab’s digital land record initiative in recent months, following an earlier decision in July to restore manual land record certificates alongside the digital system. The debate reflects broader tension between the push toward digitising land records across Punjab and persistent concerns among lawmakers and officials about data accuracy and institutional oversight during the transition, with the current six month suspension giving authorities time to address the issues raised before any potential resumption of the Green Certificate system.
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