Representational photo
NEW DELHI: With the six-month deadline for uploading details of all waqf properties on the UMEED central portal coming to an end on Friday midnight, and a little over 3.42 lakh property uploads initiated till Wednesday evening, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board issued a statement seeking extension of the deadline in view of last minute rush after Supreme Court refused to extend it on Monday.The board has written to MoS for minority affairs George Kurian, seeking an urgent meeting to highlight the technical glitches and seek extension of the deadline.As things stand, based on the Waqf (Amendment) Act, those who fail to upload on the UMEED portal (name drawn from the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development Act, 1995) by Friday, the only option will be to approach the waqf tribunal. Only if the tribunal is satisfied with the reasons for not filing within the deadline, it can allow extension of time up to six months.“After SC refused to extend the deadline of the portal, mutawallis across the country rushed to upload waqf properties. However, reports have been pouring in that the portal is repeatedly crashing, slowing down and at times stopping entirely,” AIMPLB spokesperson SQR Ilyas said. Evidently, it is almost impossible to upload lakhs of properties within such a short period, he added. In the letter sent by email and post as per AIMPLB, the board’s general secretary Maulana Muhammad Fazlur Rahim Mujaddidi said that “due to the portal’s slow speed and other technical problems”, the given period for uploads was too short. “Though the board and various religious community organisations held workshops across the country and set up help desks the sheer volume of work remains overwhelming,” he said.Meanwhile, the minority affairs ministry officials said adequate training and meetings have been held with waqf boards, including an online meet on Tuesday. “We have deployed all resources, including technical staff, to handle the rush. If the Umeed portal has successfully handled over one lakh uploads in just the past 100 hours, how can its functionality be questioned on grounds of hanging or malfunctioning?” an official said. He added that for “nearly four months there were few uploads and now the sudden surge has created an unusually heavy load — prompting complaints that stem more from delayed action than from any flaw in the portal itself”.
