Whenever we talk about land information system the first thing that comes to our mind are the land records. I would like to emphasise that a land information system is not limited to the land records alone. Land is a national asset. Ironically, it is owned and exploited by individuals or organisations who hold the ownership rights. Yet it remains the responsibility of the state to look after it. Preservation, reclamation and development of land is a national issue which has to be looked at in a holistic manner. The information contained in the land records does not represent the total information about land as an asset or a resource. The august gathering here is well aware of the importance of information about land and its uses. Therefore let us think about a land information system and not just computeristaion of land records. Nevertheless, the beginning of the process may well have commenced from the existing land records. As we are all aware, there are a large number of departments within the government both at centre as well as the states and also the non-governmental agencies who need the information about land. Their needs are however not limited to the few items reflected in the land records alone. It is therefore obvious that we need to expand the horizon of information that should be included in a national LIS. These information have to be organised in such a manner that all agencies needing the information is able to access the same without any problems. This is only possible if we standardise and expand the important contents of the land database. Therefore the matter which needs to be resolved is that, whether we can seamlessly amulgamate the data held by the state governments and virtually place it in a national reservoir where anyone who needs it can access it easily. Therefore there is an inescapable need of an information system containing the information about land and made available to all users as and when required. This can only be achieved through a National Land Information System.
Problems and Policy Issues.
The government very rightly perceived that, to put in place a National LIS there would be numerous problems. Hence, the concept of pilot projects was accepted and they were sanctioned for eight districts in the country. Unfortunately the objectives of the pilot projects were not achieved and the entire exercise did not yield any worthwhile results. In spite of that, more and more projects were sanctioned and reports were sought from the state governments regarding utilisation of funds only. At no stage was it verified whether the projects were progressing in the right direction. It was only in 1999 that evaluation teams were sent to various states to study these projects which were undertaken so far and reportedly, have been completed 100 percent or nearly so. Some of the problem areas which I plan to bring out here were those reported by the evaluation teams. I would just list out the problems without any further elaboration at this point of time. Some of the policy issues would come of the problems themselves.
- Understanding of the project by the persons responsible to implement them. Data entry was considered an end in itself whereas it was only a beginning of a dynamic process.
- The software prepared did not meet the requirements of the user to maintain the computerised records regularly. Local language interface through hardware solutions were not found very efficient.
- The administrative process of change in procedures and laying down of legal validity of computerised documents were not put in place in time.
- On completion of data entry no action was taken to field test the system and continue its use on a long term basis.
- Development of human resources did not take place simultaneously with the process of data entry. The emphasis was only on the number of data records entered and not number of tehsils where they were used. By the time the administration thought of using the data they were already outdated.
- The beneficiaries of the project were not involved in the process and hence the demand from the public or the land users was not raised.
- Resistance to the change was not handled in a manner to ensure smooth transition.
Apart from the above there are certain policy issues which need to be attended to. Some of these are urgent whereas some may be delayed slightly. These are grouped under the following heads:-
- Administrative,
- Legislative,
- Technical and
- Commercial.