The high committee of the national project of automation of agricultural land registration held today its periodical meeting at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology premises at Smart Village.

The meeting is chaired by the Minister of Justice, Counselor Adel Abdul-Hamid, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Mohamed Salem and the Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Dr. Hesham Kandil.

Attendees enroll the Acting Deputy to the Minister of Justice for Real Estate and Notarization Affairs, Counselor Omar Marwan, First Deputy to the Minister of Communications, Dr. Hoda Baraka and the Head of Egyptian Survey Authority (ESA), Mr. Mohamed Abdel-Latif Abdullah.

The meeting is meant to follow up on the project implementation nationwide, display its main achievements and check the project’s sustainability plan which aims to maintain all offices well equipped with high level technology infrastructure.

The national project of automation of agricultural land registration aims at benefiting of the communications and information technologies in registering and documenting the agricultural lands as well as providing citizens with related digital services for all cadastral maps and documents. This would save a lot of time, effort, and routine procedures many citizens face at government bodies.

The high committee meeting comes within the framework of laying the final foundations and rules to hand over the project from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to the Ministry of Justice and the Egyptian Survey Authority (ESA) in June 2012.

Handing over the project is to take place after carrying out the second phase of the project which happens to be the final phase, and running all pilot experiments in recent times to assure the required quality and efficiency of the project working system.

At this stage, the automated system is installed to all land registration offices and ESA centers in all governorates, in addition to 2 land registration agencies and 2 engineering offices in each governorate, a total of 94 offices distributed in 19 governorates.

The automated system has been installed and is now operating at the project sites in Giza, Qalyubia, Fayoum, Kafr El-Sheikh, Gharbia, Damietta, Dakahlia  and Port-Said.  By June 30, the system is to be ready to operate in the rest of the governorates.

Currently, a comprehensive plan to guarantee the maintenance of all components of the project is being elaborated. These components comprise all hardware, services, communications and networks at the information centers of the project.

In 2007, the first phase of the national project of automation of agricultural land registration was inaugurated. During the first phase, 7 regional information centers were built up in the following governorates: Assiut, Kafr El-Sheikh, Damietta, Menia, Giza, Sharkia and Beheira. These centers are constructed to serve all 19 governorates where the land registration system is applied.

In addition to the information centers mentioned above, another 12 governorates are included.

 They are listed as follows: Qalyubia, Sohag, Beni Sueif, Ismalia, Gharbia, Fayoum, Kena, Aswan, Dakahlia, Menoufia, Suez and Port-Said.

A unified land registration database comprising databases for maps and real estate documents of agricultural lands has been finalized. This amounts to a total of 5.5 million documents and agricultural cadastre database covering 138 thousand maps for all 19 governorates where the land registration project is applied.

These governorates enclose Qalyubia, Assiut, Sohag, Damietta, Kafr El-Sheikh, Menia, Beni Sueif, Ismalia, Gharbia, Giza, Fayoum, Kena, Aswan, Dakahlia, Menoufia, Sharkia, Suez, Port-Said and Beheira.

One of the main project’s outcomes is the release of automated deeds (legal real-estate document), which comprises legal data and a sketch for the real estate. The universal window is another important outcome of the project that facilitates procedures for citizens. This is in addition to publishing a guide for agricultural land registration.

Due to the significance of the project and the efficiency of its accomplishments in many sectors concerned with lands and properties, the bodies in charge of the project have been approached by a number of entities to benefit from this giant project, its infrastructure, technological structure and accumulated experience.

The State’s interest in agricultural lands reflects its keenness to protect the national wealth part of which is the agricultural lands. The State is also interested in maintaining property, which could achieve prosperity in all economic and social aspects of the society.

Furthermore, the State endeavors come out of its deep interest in paving the way for development, investment, and encouraging credits based on agricultural warranties. The State’s bodies are also eager to promote performance in government bodies, improve administrative systems and develop working systems to facilitate government transactions for the citizens.

In 2005, a protocol of joint cooperation was signed among the 3 ministries to coordinate between each other and follow up on the implementation of all project’s phases.