Digitalisation of services and operations can be said to be the essence of this year’s Konvensyen Kumpulan Inovatif dan Kreatif (KIK) Hari Inovasi dan Integriti Tanah dan Survei Sarawak (HIITS) organised by Jabatan Tanah dan Survei (JTS) Sarawak.
Of the 13 projects presented for competition, 12 focuses on digitalising manual and semi-manual processes under the management category, while one is a hybrid endeavour in the technical category.
Members of each team have demonstrated their understanding of the importance of utilising the latest technology to enhance their services and operations, which aligns with the HIITS 2022 theme ‘Innovation Sustaining Service Delivery Excellence’ (‘Inovasi Melestari Kecemerlangan Penyampaian Perkhidmatan’).
The following are the top three winners of KIK HIITS 2022, with summaries of their projects and innovations:
First Place: Lands Tahai Q (JTS Bahagian Limbang)
In Limbang Division, the number of Temporary Occupation Licence (TOL) for Skim Penempatan Semula (SPS) and Skim Pembesaran Kampung (SPK) that have not been renewed annually tended to be high. At its peak, these could account for 82.88 per cent involving 983 lots in the division.
Lands Tahai Q from the JTS divisional office identified four contributing factors to this matter: the lack of TOL renewal reminder mechanism; ineffective communication medium; conventional TOLs that can be damaged or lost easily; and limited platforms for SPS and SPK allottees to renew their TOLs.
To overcome this challenge, the KIK team developed MySmartTOL, an application for allottees to extend the validity period of their TOLs on time, as well as for JTS to monitor these renewal processes online.
Since the implementation of the “rakyat-centric” innovation in May 2022, a total of 391 TOLs (92 per cent) have been renewed; RM116,063 (90.5 per cent) of TOL arrears have been collected; and active TOLs have increased by 3.23 times to 566 TOLs.
Furthermore, MySmartTOL has managed to reduce the number of TOLs expired over three years by 89.4 per cent; increase allottee awareness levels by 100 per cent; and save 105 minutes (77.7 per cent) of the TOL renewal process time.
Second Place: Infiniti Tri-D (JTS Bahagian Sibu)
JTS Bahagian Sibu collects the highest royalties from the issuance of Lesen Memindah Bahan Batuan (LMBB) for sand, because Sibu Division possesses the largest sand extraction area in Sarawak (located at rivers of Batang Rajang, Batang Lebaan and Batang Igan).
However, analyses by Infiniti Tri-D suggested problems with monthly reports that the divisional office received from the licensor entrusted to regulate and manage sand extraction activities in the State, as they found reported results to be “static” and “showed no increase”.
This was compounded by the lack of specific methods or processes required to verify the authenticity of these reports.
Thus, the KIK team set out to improve the efficiency of managing monthly reporting on sand extraction in Sibu Division, particularly by establishing a medium to verify the monthly reports; shifting away from manual reporting; generating more comprehensive reports; utilising the existing system to the fullest; and ensuring supervision in the stockpile area.
The results of which were three solutions: 1) ubiQtrac, an information technology application designed as a medium to verify reports of sand extraction results through the existing system that has been used by the licensor; 2) Self-Declaration for Clarification of Monthly Return System or i-Dclare, a digital platform for operators to declare their sand extraction results; and 3) collaborative programmes between JTS Bahagian Sibu and relevant stakeholders.
Since being carried out across Sibu Division in July 2022, there has been an increase in sand extraction results by 10 per cent within one month or over 13,000 metric tons per month.
Encouragingly, all operators made declarations exceeding the monthly quota, while the process of preparing the monthly report has been shortened from seven days to one day through the full use of i-Dclare.
Third Place: Ruai Vaie D9 (JTS Bahagian Bintulu)
JTS Bahagian Bintulu had been experiencing low collection of arrears of land premium and land tax in Bintulu Division.
As Ruai Vaie D9 discovered, this was due to the lack of monitoring tools for the collection of arrears of premium and land tax; low number of Notices of Demand (NOD) issued; land owners not being informed on the latest total of arrears of premium and land tax; and the incomplete compliance with the Standard Operation Procedure (Land Administration Circular 2/2015).
Thus, the KIK team came up with Intelligent Recovery System (i-Recovery) for the divisional office to better manage premium and land tax arrears collection.
Through it, the department is able to monitor and gather data of premium and land tax arrears more easily, quickly and effectively, in line with its goals of ensuring efficient and effectual service delivery and governance systems, as well as increasing the collection of premium and land tax revenue.
