iii) Issues
The present land records are generated by employing manual labour and making use of inexpensive, approximate and rudimentary, but friendly survey instruments. As the entire exercise is manual, completion of survey and mapping operations has taken even decades and, by the time the maps and the land registers are put to maintenance, they were already outdated to a great extent. Elaborate and time consuming land settlement operations also contributed to the delays in finalising the land records.
Hence prime emphasise should be given for the computerisation of the land records maintenance for the benefit of the public and to bring in e-governance into effect at the grass root levels. Evolving system architecture, educating the concerned officers and the public of the benefits and implementing it are the key areas that require the most attention. The system architecture design should be taken into consideration the specific problems related to the land records.
Emerging Technologies/ Trends in LRIMS
There are various kinds of real time problems and drawbacks in the present-day land record information management. In the cyber era unique technologies have emerged up and they act as asserts to the present demands in information technology. Some of these technologies with their affect in LRIMS are elaborated in the following sub-headings:
i) GIS
Geographic information system (GIS) is a computer-based tool for mapping and analysing things that exist and events that happen on earth. GIS technology integrates common database operations such as query and statistical analysis with the unique visualisation and geographic analysis benefits offered by maps. These abilities distinguish GIS from other information systems and make it valuable to a wide range of public and private enterprises for explaining events, predicting outcomes and planning strategies.
LRIMS requires a huge amount of maps integrated with large databases. GIS is an excellent tool which handles all these kind of spatial as well as non-spatial data.
In the conventional mapping and recording procedure, the data is widely distributed. For any kind of information different sub-branches of land record department have to be traced, which is very time consuming. If geographical database like maps and alphanumeric database like ownership information, crop information and revenue information are integrated to generate a single LRIMS, the information extraction for the future use will be very easy. It is very clear that initial generation of LRIMS along with the GIS will take a substantial amount of time, but once the system is in place further querying, analysis and updation will be very fast. GIS will help LRIMS to visualize each and every land parcels in terms of "polygons" along with their related attributes. Edge-matching the land record maps is easier in GIS environment. All the maps will have single projection system as well as there will be topological relationship between the land parcels.
ii) Data Warehousing and Data Mining
Data warehouse is a storage device or simply a vessel in which information is added. In essence, a data warehouse is a large database organising operational data in a repository for easy query and analysis. It is a well-conceived and well-designed environment containing data that are keys to an organisation's decision making process. A data warehouse helps organise the data. Data mining helps end users extract useful business information from large databases. It brings the power of predictive modelling to Decision-makers and Strategy planners. The concepts of data warehousing and mining are extended to spatial (maps and images) data also.
The huge volume of information created for the LRIMS can be implemented in data warehousing. The history of property transfer as well as division of land parcels can be visualised with this technology. The revenue information for land holders, crop pattern and yield trends can very well be studied once the LRIMS is warehoused. There are large number of COTS (Commercially Off The Shelf) softwares available which take care of spatial data warehousing and data mining.
iii) Web
The explosion of internet activity over recent years has sparked a global move away from traditional isolated single-software, single-machine computing, towards distributed multiple-software, multiple-machine computing. The advantages are obvious - larger information base, up-to-date information and greater computing power.
The web technology has given tremendous scope to LRIMS. The huge database of LRIMS including both map as well as alphanumeric data can be safely stored in a centralized server in the main land record department of each state. These informations will be accessed through internet from different sub-divisions. Various levels of informations will be available to different departments and they can be password protected to prevent illegal accessing of data. Land record data updation and modification of revenue information, property transfer and crop yield can be done at the client side and saved back in the server. On the client side the permission for data updation, deletion will be given to the concerned authority with the provision of login and password.
Conclusion
Integration of FMB and alphanumeric data is indispensable to have a full-fledged LRIMS. In the traditional manual methods the query of land record with all the related data is comparatively time consuming and laborious. The technologies like GIS, spatial data warehousing and web are very mush helpful to generate a complete LRIMS. All Taluka offices, to update the information as well as to keep a track of ownership, crop yield and revenue will use this system. With the aid of these recent technologies all the land record information will be under fingertip (click of mouse). Land record information management will be easier and faster.
Reference
- Y.V.N. Krishna Murthy, S. Shrinivaa Rao, D.S. Shrinivanan & S. Ardiga, 2000, "Land Information System (LIS) for rural development", Technical proceedings, Geomatics 2000.
- Krzysztof Koperski, Jiawei Han & Junas Adhikary, "Spatial Data Mining: Progress and Challenges"
- C. Umashankar & Bhaskara Rama Murty, 2000, "Implementation of an Integrated Land Records System - A Case Study at Kudavasal Taluk, Thiruvarur District, Tamil Nadu", Technical proceedings, Geomatics 2000.
- Fred Gifford, 1999, "Internet GIS Architectures--Which Side Is Right for You?", May, 1999, Geo World