LIS in India - Perspective and restrospective
Current status of Land records and LIS in India:
The present cadastral system was evolved by the British for purposes of governance and revenue collection and till 1905 the responsibility for revenue surveys was with Survey of India. There after the responsibility was transferred to the Provinces and now vests with the State Governments. The cadastral maps were required to be updated every 30 years. However, as most of the states have not carried out any survey and settlement operations since independence, the land records are by and large out dated and do not reflect the ground realities with regard to ownership and possession. The accuracy of the original cadastral surveys, which were carried out based on the technology and accuracy standards relevant at that time, are wholly inadequate now due to rapid fragmentation of land parcels coupled with the rising land prices. The legal cover for the land owners is provided through a sale deed on stamp paper which becomes a legal document which can be invoked at the time of disputes and litigation. However it does not necessarily provide the guarantee to title.
Recognising the importance of land records and realising the deficiencies in the cadastral system, the planners advocated proper maintenance of land records as the basis for good administration in First Five Year Plan and subsequently in the Second and Third Plans also. The Sixth Plan laid down a target of five years from 1980-1985 for compilation and updating of land records. The Seventh Plan while re-emphasising the need for updated land records also advocated scientific survey of unmeasured lands. Towards achieving these objectives, few pilot projects were taken up using various technologies for generating Cadastral maps. Computerisation of land records was started under a centrally sponsored scheme in Seventh Plan which continued through the Eighth and Ninth Plans.
With regard to Land Information System, there is no computer based LIS operational in the country. However, the cadastral records in their present form could be vaguely construed as a conventional Land Information System. As the land records have been created with a village as an administrative unit, such an LIS could be treated as a village level LIS comprising of two distinctive components - the graphical record comprising of field measurements and sketches and the descriptive land register in which the title and other land related information is recorded. However, such a conventional LIS has very limited utility for planners on account of the inaccuracies which have crept into the system and also the limitation on the quantum of attribute data it contained. Further the access to information was limited to only those who held the records.
Need for a hierarchical model of information system:
For a country like India with its rural based economy largely dependent on agriculture, the most suitable model for an LIS is one in which the data is referenced to the Land parcel fully described in the cadastral records. Such village-LIS will be useful for micro level planning as it can contain all information, both graphic and non graphic pertinent to the village planning requirements. The graphic database will store all data relating to graphic elements which describe the limits of parcels, its adjacency and other feature information. The non-graphic database, apart from containing information available in the land registry records can also include other attribute data such as house hold, cultural, socio-economic data etc. which would be relevant for planners at village level.
Since, in rural development planning, plans need to be formulated at different levels of administrative hierarchy, the next logical stage for planning is the Mandal or the Tahsil. Here the issues addressed by the planners will pertain to the developmental needs of a group of villages and so their data requirements will also vary. These plans will no longer be addressing each individual land holding or holder. It will instead look at the needs of a group of contiguous villages or a larger area of land with identified common requirements such as all lands falling in a catchment area etc. An LIS for Tahsil planners could therefore be generated from the village - LIS by filtering and integrating the graphic elements and generalising and aggregating the non-graphic attribute data. The data in this LIS could therefore be spatially referenced not to the individual parcel or holding but to a grouping of parcels, e.g. area covered by a Revenue Survey number. The non-graphic land data will also therefore cover the common land attributes of the grouping and in addition any other land data which will be relevant for planning at this level. Similarly for other attribute data, it will no longer cover the individual house holds but a larger homogenous grouping with a common socio-economic or ethnic denominator. The information stored in the database will therefore be classed or grouped data.
These two levels of planning, the village and Tahsil level constitute the micro level where in the geo-specific local variation in physical and socio-economic factors can be effectively addressed. The next level of hierarchical plan formulation could be at District level. At this level the issues to be addressed will be more broad-based like planning for infrastructure facilities like communications network, power, higher levels of medical needs etc. which constitute elements of macro level planning. The data requirements at this level will therefore be of a vastly different nature. Here the data in the database needs to be referenced to the villages and towns, e.g. development of road networks, infrastructure, marketing facilities etc. will be with reference to habitations. The Survey of India topographic maps on 1:25,000 in which the village boundaries and municipal boundaries are depicted, could serve as ideal base maps for generating the GIS at District Level. As the Tahsil level LIS's contain the village boundaries, it will be possible to aggregate the non-graphic attribute data village wise in the LIS and map it into the District GIS. Here also, all the data in the Tahsil LIS's will not be required, hence only the relevant information will need to be aggregated. In addition to this, any other information as necessary for the district level of planning can also be incorporated in the databases.
Such a Hierarchical design of information systems will ensure that plans generated at all levels will be compatible as they will be based on information derived from a common source. It will also reduce redundancy in storage and eliminate duplication of efforts at data capturing stage.
Base Map Requirement And Need For Modernising Cadastral Surveys
It is needless to say that an accurate map is a basic requisite to design an LIS. It is also desirable that these maps are on some standard scales and with accuracy standards commensurate with present day requirements. The projection system for these maps should be such that it facilitates seamless integration of map data when generating maps for higher level information systems. The present day cadastral maps, when viewed in the context of these requirements, are wholly inadequate and unsuitable for generation of the LIS for reasons as follows -
There are no common standard scales being followed. It differs from state to state and varies from 1:500 to 1:5000 .
The accuracy standards also differ from state to state and are not adequate for present day requirements as the survey techniques and standards being followed are generally those adopted over 100 years ago .
The village maps are generally very old and either need heavy updating or have gone through various stages of manual settlement resulting in degradation of quality.
The projection used in India is Cassini projection in which the scale is true along the central Meridian and in a direction at right angles to it. However the scale along the other meridians is exaggerated as we go away from the central meridian. Hence the projection is suitable only for areas having small extent in East-West directions. This therefore renders it unsuitable for larger areas and for seamless integration of maps.