Chennai: Tamil Nadu registration department has announced multiple reforms for 2026-27 aimed at making property registration more accessible, reducing the workload of registration officials, tightening checks against fraudulent transactions and shifting more services online.The demands for grants for Stamps and Registration Department were made by minister D Logesh Tamilselvan in the assembly on Monday. One of the measures is the integration of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department and Waqf Board with registration department’s STAR 2.0 system. Through API integration, authorised officials of the two bodies will be able to directly update details of properties prohibited from registration.The department will also introduce real-time verification of death and legal-heir certificates through API technology. Certificate numbers submitted during registration will be verified as soon as they are entered into the system, helping prevent fraudulent registrations through fake certificates.The jurisdiction of sub-registrar offices will be reorganised so that an entire revenue village comes under a single office. Boundaries will also be redrawn to distribute workload more evenly, particularly among offices handling large numbers of registrations.Twenty-five high-workload offices, including Kundrathur and Avinashi, will receive additional staff, computers and advanced scanners to ensure registered documents are scanned and returned on the same day. The initiative will involve ₹54 lakh in recurring expenditure and ₹34 lakh in non-recurring expenditure.The department will establish 25 model registration hubs in North, Central and South Chennai, Chengalpet and Coimbatore (north) registration districts to reduce queues and congestion.Presenceless registration will be expanded in phases. From Sept 15, registration of deposit of title deeds and receipt documents relating to loans from banks and NBFCs will be made mandatory through the system. From Oct 15, settlement, release, partition and revocation of settlement deeds will have to be registered through a paperless system.IIT-Madras will be appointed as technical consultant to improve the speed, capacity and security of STAR 2.0/3.0, while a data analytics cell will be established at the inspector general of registration office at a cost of ₹1.50 crore. The department will also allocate ₹1 crore for training officials and discontinue mandatory Saturday duty in 100 sub-registrar offices.
