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Indian land program shows tech's limits

Tuesday - 12/25/2012, 12:16am  ET

Associated Press

BANGALORE, India (AP) - For years, Karnataka's land records were a quagmire of disputed, forged documents maintained by thousands of tyrannical bureaucrats who demanded bribes to do their jobs. In 2002, hopes emerged that this was about to change.



As the Indian government puts increasing faith in technology to help solve the nation's thorniest problems _ including a complete tech-based overhaul of its welfare system _ Bhoomi presents a cautionary tale: that technology, even at its most successful, can only be a part of the solution.
















`'We all knew it was garbage," Chawla said. `'But if I tried to clean this garbage, it may take donkey's years for me, and by the time I cleaned it, more garbage would come into the system."

Instead, by putting safeguards in place to ensure the same piece of land is not sold to multiple buyers and by making the system of land sales more transparent, he hoped the garbage would slowly be squeezed out of the system as land was sold over the years.

But that could take decades, he acknowledges.

The land fight in Karadigere Kaval, a tiny village 85 kilometers (53 miles) from Bangalore, has raged since 1952, when the government gave a little under a hectare (two acres) apiece to hundreds of dalits _ so downtrodden they have no caste.

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