Digitalization of land records

29/09/2022

Jamabandi is an essential document which contains all the information of various categories of land along with different survey numbers. A survey number is a fixed number given to a fixed piece of land during settlement in an estate. Jamabandi is also called "Char Sala" meaning it being written and re-written after a time period of four years. The mutations attested from the preparing of previous Jamabandi of an estate are incorporated in the remarks column of that Jamabandi with red ink as these entries become visible and entries in the Khanakast are tallied with the current Girdawari. Revenue department is the oldest and an important one. This department is understood as synonymous with land and maintenance of records of the same thereof. Land is divided into various categories depending on the use it is put into. Some of the categories are Agricultural, Non-agriculture, Banjri Jaded, Bangri Qadeem, etc. The department maintains the records of these distinct types of land category-wise. Jamabandies, Girdawaries, Mutation registers and Fardi portal are well heard of. People throng tehsil offices to get the documents or information related to their holdings. The basic soldier of revenue department, Patwari, maintains and updates these records thereby making it available for reference to the government and general public.
Most of these Jamabandies were prepared in the year 1969-71 before the commencement of Agrarian Reforms Act. Then, after a gap of twenty years new Jamabandies were prepared in all estates of the erstwhile state. The process continued till 1999.The then officials compiled these Jamabandies but most of them were left unchecked and remain without the signatures of attesting authorities. This unattested record gave birth to litigations, on the one hand and, left a scope for embezzlement, on the other hand. Again after a gap of almost thirty years Land Records Information System was launched in the year 2017 entitled' Aap Ki Zameen Aap Ki Nigrani' under the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme. Under 'Digital India' Mission various initiatives were taken across sectors to digitalize records. This marks a complete transition from offline to online. Now people can check the records of their land online from anywhere. This has decreased rush in Central and District Record Rooms and Tehsil Offices. The digitized Jamabandies are well documented and would hence boost revenue departments digital footprint and audience. These are reviewed and updated after every four years. However, this prescription was not followed in the past and hence most of these were not in line with the current ground reality. Before digitizing any record, it is important on the part of concerned authorities to have widespread consultation with different stakeholders. In this case of Jamabandies, taking Zamindars & land-owners onboard along with Chow-kidars and Lumberdars would help verify the entries.

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