Need to digitize urban land records after 625,000 villages, says minister

New Delhi: As rural land records evolve, urban land management must also rise to meet the demand of rapid urbanization, said minister of state for Rural development Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani in New Delhi on Tuesday, adding that India has already digitized land records of 625,000 villages across the country.

More than administrative tools, accurate land records are the backbone of socio-economic planning, public service delivery, and conflict resolution, the minister of state said at the workshop on surveying for urban land records, according to a press release.

Use of technology to reduce disputes

Pemmasani’s remarks underscore the central government’s focus on using technology in land records to reduce disputes. In July, union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced major reforms about land, labour, and technology in her budget speech.

These would include assigning a Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN), also known as “Bhu-Aadhaar,” to all land pieces, digitizing cadastral maps, conducting surveys of map sub-divisions based on current ownership, establishing a land registry, and linking it to the farmers’ registry for rural land.

Urban land records would also be digitized using GIS mapping tools, the finance minister had said, adding that states would be incentivized to implement these reforms faster with 50-year interest free loans.

Pemmasani called for using digital technology to avoid errors in recording land measurements. Using tools such as drones, aircraft-based surveys, and satellite imagery can provide accurate maps and reduce human error, he said.

“By creating spatially enabled land records we can resolve longstanding issues such as overlapping ownership claims, inconsistent land valuations, and boundary disputes,” he said.

“The time has come to move beyond traditional costly and time-consuming surveys and adapt these advanced technologies for a new era in urban governance,” the minister said.

The department of land resources launched a pilot to digitize urban land records in as many as 130 cities in the country in the next one year. This plan, named the “National geospatial Knowledge-based land Survey of urban Habitations (NAKSHA)”, aims to complete the exercise in 4,900 cities in the next five years.

Speakers from industry partners and international experts from US, Spain, South Korea, France, Germany, Netherlands, UK, Japan and Australia presented their views during the workshop.