Land Records Management System in India – Technical Framework Vinay Thakur Email: vinay@hub.nic.in Ganesh Khadanga Email: ganesh@hub.nic.in D.S Venkatesh Email: venkat@hub.nic.in Dr D.R Shukla Email: shukla@hub.nic.in Land Records Information Systems Division National Informatics Centre, New Delhi SD Meena IAS, Director, Land Reforms, DOLR, Ministry of Rural Development Email: sdmeena@hub.nic.in Telephone: 9111-24362093, 4361133 Ext-4591/4581
Abstract
Land is the habitat of man and its wide use is crucial for the economic, social, and environmental advancement of the country. Maintaining this vast land records data consisting of cadastral maps and alphanumeric data containing record of rights and crop statistics has always been a challenge to revenue department. Ministry of Rural Development and National Informatics Centre devised to use IT as a tool for maintaining this voluminous land records data. That will be a mammoth task as it envisages use of upcoming technologies such as GIS, Web, Open Source, smartcard and Data warehousing for the administration, distribution and analysis of land data, at all stages viz. recording, retrieving, disseminating & employing the data. Developing such Infrastructure, will lead to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of land management both from the perspective of the common man as well as that of managers implementing land based development activities. 1.0 Introduction: Although it is part of man's natural heritage, access to land is controlled by ownership patterns. Land is partitioned for administrative and economic purposes, and it is used and transformed in a myriad ways. Population growth, technological and social hazards, and environmental degradation have all to be taken into greater account today by policy makers, resource planners, and administrators who make decisions about the land. They need more detailed land information than has been traditionally available. Although the printed map is still useful, computerized systems offer improved ways of acquiring, storing, processing and retrieving such information. More recently, the need for thoughtful and careful stewardship of the land, together with the more intensive use and management of its resources, has emerged as a matter of major global concern. This has led to a re-evaluation both of the need for information about the land and of the strategies and programmes that may provide it. Increasingly it has been recognized that policy makers, planners, land administrators, and individual citizens all have a need for information about the land make significant use of spatial data on a day to day basis. Accurate knowledge of natural resources and accurate description and record of such knowledge are the essential prerequisite to their rational use and conservation. Land information is prime requisite for making decisions related to land investment, development and management. Information reduces uncertainty by helping to identify and analyze problems. Strategies to overcome them may then be prepared and implemented. The value of the information and the effectiveness of the decision making process are directly related to the quality of the information and the manner in which it is made available. The paper covers all the aspects of land records information maintenance system and technologies, which have been used presently. Land records are very important because these form the basis for assignment and settlement of land titles, these must stand against legal scrutiny. 2.0 Existing Scenario: In India, land records data are maintained at tehsil office or equivalent offices. Mainly the records are of two types:
Various registers are maintaining containing the following records: Record of Rights: It contains the ownership details of each parcel, sub-divisions etc. Crop details: These are updated thrice/twice in the States based on crop seasons and inspection reports giving details of crops sown, area, cultivators and yield details. Pedigree table – This is pedigree sheet giving the details of family history, relationships with ownership details. 2.2 Survey Methods used in the past The object of cadastral survey is the determination of village and field boundaries, preparation of village map showing such boundaries and area lists, and preparation of field registers. The maps and area lists give the physical boundaries and areas and the field registers give the land particulars like ownership, revenue assessment, land classification etc. Numerous Survey methods were used and modified time and again. However, the records of Bombay Survey System and Madras Survey System, which evolved after various iterations, were adopted as a standard in many Southern States. 2.2.1 Bombay Survey System This method involved running an imaginary line called G-Line or Baseline across the field and measurement of plot boundary vertex locations with respect to this line. Two distances, the distance along the baseline and the perpendicular length from the baseline to the vertex were recorded in the form of a Ladder Table or Field Measurement Table (FMT). The Field Data for a village were maintained in a book with the ladder tables and a sketch of each land holding. 2.2.2 Madras Survey System In this system, the survey field is initially approximated by running triangulation lines across the field. These triangulation lines describe the basic shape of the boundary of the survey field. The detailed profile of the survey field is described by offsetting local boundary points on to the triangulation lines along the boundary. The system also uses multiple base line method occasionally in describing a complex shape survey field. Further, survey records are also sub-divided and represented in the field measurement sketch unlike in the case of Bombay survey system where sub-divisions are represented on a separate sheet from the main tippan (a sheet describing the boundary of the survey field). 2.2.3 Mapping Village maps were prepared by using the individual survey field data. Such maps tended to be slightly inaccurate due to error in individual fields being accumulated across the village. Errors generally crept in due to measurement resolution being rounded off and also due to terraneous nature of the ground. Field sketches assume the ground to be flat, however, the same data when mosaiced across a village result in sizeable. The boundary of the village was traversing surveyed and was used to control the accumulated error in the mosaiced village map. In traverse survey, the entire village was divided into more than one block and known boundary points (called traverse stations). The method involved starting from first station and recording the distance and the angle to the next station and so on till the circuit was closed. In many Northern states, the individual field records were either lost or abandoned after preparation of accurate village map and this map became a basis for obtaining individual survey boundaries. 3.0 Issues: Though many States have digitized their records but it will take time where we can achieve ‘sync’ between data entered and transactions so manual system of issuing of Record of Rights (ROR) is prevalent in most of the States.
4.1 GIS GIS is a tool that can be effectively used for better visualization and spatial analysis applications. Maps are a powerful medium for planning, analysis and monitoring. It integrates non-spatial and spatial datasets for query and better display. Cadastral Maps can be used on a day-to-day basis by decision-makers at grass root level. The data of cadastral survey forms the basis for generation of any accurate high-level map. 4.2 Data Warehousing Information is one of the valuable assets to any Government. When used properly, it can help planners and decision makers in making informed decisions leading to positive impact on targeted group of citizens. An Information Warehouse can deliver strategic intelligence to the decision makers and provide an insight into the overall situation. This greatly facilitates decision-makers in taking micro level decisions in a timely manner. By organizing land-related data into a meaningful Information Warehouse, the Government decision makers can be empowered with a flexible tool that enables them to make informed policy decisions for citizen facilitation and accessing their impact over the intended section of the population. Hence a data warehouse built on land data containing history of property transfer, division of land parcels, yield trends, crop pattern and revenue details can be beneficial to both the Government decision makers and citizens as well in the following manner: As present most of the States have captured their data in computers and copies of Record of Rights are being distributed from computer centers. But need of hour is to have uniform system and storage format for land records maintenance where national Level data warehousing will ensure better micro and macro level planning of land resources .
The World Wide Web in its present level of development makes it possible to process and disseminate all the land record on the GIS platform along with the attached data. It is so structured that anyone and everyone can interact on the website in a query-based structuring. Even all applications and requests for mutations can be accepted online. The access is provided all around the State through kiosks that are self financed and pay a certain fee to the State for the right to provide the authenticated records. “View free, pay for the signed record” includes free downloading of records. It is for the legal document that the person will have to pay a charge, which would be much less than the informal charge that he has to pay to the revenue official today. The web-based technology has given great scope for integration and dissemination of map and multi-lingual attribute data. Any one on the Internet can access the information. The data updation, authentication has to be done at server at with proper password protections. 4.4 Use of Handheld Device (Simputer) Simputer is a low cost, simple hand-held computer developed by a team of scientists from the Indian Institute of Science and the Bangalore -based Encore Software and can be used for field data collection directly from fields. This is being done in Karnataka State where village level revenue functionaries have been given simputers for data collections. 4.5 Data Security: Security should be of the paramount consideration while developing software and processing data. Apart from this, full set of security policies has to be worked out so that this vital data can’t be tempered with. The need of security policies has to be clearly told to the officers working in the tehsils and they should be directed to adhere to these policies. For local authentication purpose and for non-repudiation the state-of-the-art bio-matrix fingerprint readers should be used thus obviating the need of remembering of passwords and ill effects of weak passwords getting cracked by unscrupulous elements. Transactions on database must generate entry into hidden log files, which can help the administrator to identify transactions done by various officials. Full set of guidelines for recovering the crashed system should be formulated in the system and regular backup of the system has to be taken at the end of the day. If backup is not taken at the end of the day, system should not boot next day with out taking backup of the data. 4.6 On-line Connectivity As to the future, one hears of extensive broad banding of rural communications and the advent of wireless technologies for local linkages & horizontal and vertical integration. A basket of satellite-based technologies is waiting to be used. Those pursuing the vision of a Land Records Information system are fired up with ideas and dreams. But then the final goal, clearly, is just to render clean, efficient, updated & quick yet economical Land Records Information system and services to the rural populace. 4.6 Kiosk & Smart Card The Public delivery needs to be further strengthened to provide certified copies of ROR to the landowners at doorstep through village level kiosks. These kiosks can be setup by private entrepreneurs. The land owners can also given smart cards in order to provide them the access of their land records data on ‘when and where’ basis. 4.7 Open Software The open source community has significantly enhanced the open source databases such as MySql, Postgress SQL and front-end development tools like java. This will be providing cost effective enterprise solutions for implementing Land Records Information System. 5.0 Conclusions So, why not to try a judicious mix of a minority of strategically placed electronic competencies with a majority of well-managed manual work. The technologies available will not only allow integrate the various spatial and non-spatial datasets, but will enable online gathering, recording, warehousing, retrieving, disseminating & employing the data, which will lead to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of land management both from the perspective of the common man as well as that of decision makers implementing land based development activities at grass root level. 6.0 References
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