CHENNAI: About four crore pages of property documents belonging to Hindu religious and charitable endowments (HR&CE) temples are being digitised and stored using blockchain technology with a view to safeguarding them from tampering and preventing fraudulent property registrations. The department has tied up with Elcot to carry out the work. The digital imprints would be stored in three different locations in the country.
The HR&CE is doing the work with the help of Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency. The digitised documents would be stored in the Elcot facility at Perungudi in Chennai, Tamil Nadu Disaster Recovery Centre in Trichy and National Informatics Centre in Pune. “Blockchain technology is being used to ensure that none of the documents are hacked and tampered with in future. Only through synergized locking-in from two sites can anyone access the data,” said an official. Commissioner and other senior officials would be given a digital key to access the data directly.
The department, on Friday, launched the task of scanning the documents in association with Elcot. It was started by HR&CE minister P K Sekar Babu.
“At present, Elcot has deployed 13 scanners and as many technicians to scan the permanent documents available in the records room. We are scanning the documents year-wise, starting from the oldest files,” said a senior official.
Documents from 1900 to 1921 have been taken up for scanning now. “On an average, the technicians can scan 20,000 pages per day. We are making efforts to provide more space to Elcot to install more scanners and increase the scanning capacity to 50,000 pages per day,” said the official.
Some of the pages are brittle and their corners are damaged. In many cases, the writings are dull and faded. However, Elcot is using a software to capture even faded text to convert into readable format.
The project is aimed at achieving transparency and preserving the documents of more than 44,000 temples and their properties such as land and buildings. The temples have 4.75 lakh acres of land and more than 55,o00 buildings, including marriage halls and shops across the state.
The department is planning to complete the process in six months. “We will start scanning documents available at joint and associate commissioners’ offices next week. It is estimated to cost Rs 4 crore,” said the official.
The HR&CE is doing the work with the help of Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency. The digitised documents would be stored in the Elcot facility at Perungudi in Chennai, Tamil Nadu Disaster Recovery Centre in Trichy and National Informatics Centre in Pune. “Blockchain technology is being used to ensure that none of the documents are hacked and tampered with in future. Only through synergized locking-in from two sites can anyone access the data,” said an official. Commissioner and other senior officials would be given a digital key to access the data directly.
The department, on Friday, launched the task of scanning the documents in association with Elcot. It was started by HR&CE minister P K Sekar Babu.
“At present, Elcot has deployed 13 scanners and as many technicians to scan the permanent documents available in the records room. We are scanning the documents year-wise, starting from the oldest files,” said a senior official.
Documents from 1900 to 1921 have been taken up for scanning now. “On an average, the technicians can scan 20,000 pages per day. We are making efforts to provide more space to Elcot to install more scanners and increase the scanning capacity to 50,000 pages per day,” said the official.
Some of the pages are brittle and their corners are damaged. In many cases, the writings are dull and faded. However, Elcot is using a software to capture even faded text to convert into readable format.
The project is aimed at achieving transparency and preserving the documents of more than 44,000 temples and their properties such as land and buildings. The temples have 4.75 lakh acres of land and more than 55,o00 buildings, including marriage halls and shops across the state.
The department is planning to complete the process in six months. “We will start scanning documents available at joint and associate commissioners’ offices next week. It is estimated to cost Rs 4 crore,” said the official.