Maharashtra GRAS Portal Glitch Halts Property Registrations, Strands Thousands
A major technical glitch in the Government Receipt Accounting System (GRAS) portal on Friday threw property registrations across Maharashtra into chaos, leaving thousands of citizens stranded at sub-registrar offices. The mandatory platform for paying stamp duty and registration fees remained non-functional until late afternoon, disrupting transactions and causing significant delays.
Widespread Disruption and Citizen Frustration
Frustrated citizens, many of whom had scheduled appointments weeks in advance, were forced to wait for hours or return home without completing their property registrations. The system outage led to a complete standstill in document processing for most of the day, creating a backlog that officials expect to impact daily registration figures.
Officials from the state finance department, which manages the GRAS portal, confirmed the outage. "A technical issue hampered the system's performance. It was resolved by an expert team by late afternoon," an official stated. However, the lack of communication exacerbated the chaos, with many receiving no prior intimation about the service failure.
Real Estate Agents and Activists Voice Concerns
Real estate agents highlighted that such disruptions are becoming a recurring problem, citing frequent issues with Aadhaar authentication or portal downtimes. "We frequently see issues with Aadhaar authentication or portal downtimes. Lack of an automated notification system for citizens is a major grievance," one agent said.
Citizen activist S. Joshi echoed these concerns, calling for better transparency. "Authorities must provide advance notice or real-time alerts when systems go offline. Many people travel from other states for these registrations, and such unplanned disruptions completely derail their schedules," he said.
Impact and Mitigation Efforts
To mitigate the impact, some sub-registrar offices extended their working hours by 90 minutes. Abhay Mohite, DIG (IT) of the registration department, confirmed the restoration of the system and noted the potential dip in daily registration numbers. "Approximately 10,000 documents are registered daily in Maharashtra. Friday's downtime will likely result in a dip in those figures," Mohite said. He added that many registrations have been postponed to Saturday or Sunday to accommodate the backlog.
The incident underscores the need for improved system reliability and communication protocols to prevent future disruptions in essential public services.
