Patna, The Bihar government has announced plans to transition the state’s property registration system to a completely paperless regime from the 2025-26 financial year, in a move aimed at enhancing transparency, reducing corruption and eliminating lengthy bureaucratic delays at registry offices.
The Department of Prohibition, Excise and Registration is drafting the “Bihar Registration Rules 2025”, which will replace the existing framework and enable end-to-end digital execution of sale deeds, mortgages and other registrable instruments.
Under the proposed system:
– Buyers and sellers will receive an authenticated digital copy of the registered document immediately upon completion of the transaction. The document will remain permanently accessible online, removing risks associated with loss or tampering of physical records.
– All payments of stamp duty and registration fees will be mandatory through digital channels (net banking, UPI, debit/credit cards). Cash transactions will no longer be accepted.
– Documents will be uploaded in digital format only, with traditional ink signatures replaced by biometric authentication. Aadhaar-based biometric verification of both parties, already mandatory, will continue as the primary identity check.
– Biometric impressions of the executants will serve as their legally valid digital signatures.
A high-level committee, chaired by the Assistant Inspector-General of Registration (Magadh Division, Gaya), has been constituted to finalise the draft rules. The panel includes retired senior officers engaged as consultants to lend decades of domain expertise. Suggestions have also been solicited from all Assistant Inspectors-General of Registration across the state.
The department expects the new rules to be notified and rolled out statewide within the current financial year, making Bihar one of the first states in India to achieve fully paperless property registration at scale.
The initiative is part of a broader digitisation push by the Nitish Kumar administration to curb fraudulent transactions, reduce opportunities for rent-seeking at sub-registrar offices and bring Bihar’s land records ecosystem in line with national digital governance standards.
