Central government working on plan to help states, union territories streamline land and property records in urban areas

New Delhi: The central government is planning to bring out a scheme to help states and union territories (UTs) modernize land and property records in urban areas, streamlining the system for record-keeping and bringing transparency in land transactions. It’s a step in the direction of doing it.

This comes after the implementation of the Digital India Land Records Modernization Program (DILRMP) PM-SVAMITVA SchemeBoth in rural areas – The first for land parcels, the second for residential areas.

To begin with, the government’s public policy think tank NITI Aayog has set up a meeting with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and the Ministry of Rural Development, which is implementing the DILRMP, to find solutions for land transactions and other related processes. Got along. Citizen-friendly in urban areas, two senior MoHUA officials told ThePrint.

The first such consultation with 18 states and union territories was held on June 28, while the second round took place last week. Possible solutions are likely to be presented at the next chief secretaries’ meeting to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October or November. MoHUA officials said.

“There are a lot of issues related to land and property records in urban areas as most cities do not have cadastral maps (detailed revenue maps), so land and property records are not synchronized. This leads to problems in mutation of property and land dispute redressal,” said an official.

DILRMP is a flagship program of Ministry of Rural Development through which it is issuing Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN), also known as ULPIN. land baseSince 2016 to give parcel land in rural areas. The PM-Swamitva scheme is being implemented by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, under which property cards are being issued to people in residential areas (abadi areas) in villages.

Some states have already started the exercise on one’s own. Earlier this year, the Madhya Pradesh (MP) government launched a pilot project to generate geo-referenced land maps with property details of three different types of residential settlements in urban areas using drones.

In the consultation last week, Gujarat, Maharashtra and MP made presentations about the system adopted by them to bring about reforms in land and property records.

“We are exploring the possibility of bringing a similar system to address land record systems in urban areas by understanding best practices from other states.” the MoHUA official said.


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Land record keeping in cities is a challenge

As mentioned above, absence of cadastral maps in cities or urbanized areas leads to problems in mutation (transfer of property rights), boundary disputes etc.

“As most states have closed Practice To keep maps, it has become difficult to maintain property records,” the official quoted earlier said,

The second challenge is vertical development, mixed land use etc. Unlike rural areas where a residential property is built on a land parcel, cities have apartments, even plotted developments with multiple owners, mixed land use and unauthorized colonies etc.

“We are looking at options like a unique ID for each property so that all services are linked to it and people are not inconvenienced in property tax payments, mutations etc,” the official said.

States adopt different models

The MP government has selected three different types of urban areas – a planned area (residence area in Indore), Naya Harsud (a new town set up to resettle families displaced due to the construction of the Indira Sagar Project dam), and One urban village (Shahganj in Sehore district) – for pilot project.

“We are using drones to prepare maps of these residential areas with clearly defined boundaries of each property,” MP Revenue Secretary Sanjay Goel told ThePrint. We then conduct a house-to-house survey to verify the ownership details and the information is fed into the system.

He said: “Each property and its boundaries will be geo-referenced in the map, as is being done under the PM-Swamitva scheme. In most cities, the type of settlement is broadly similar to the areas we selected for the pilot project. Once this exercise is complete, we may issue a ULPIN number for each property.”

The revenue secretary said, the challenges in cities are manifold, as some cities do not have maps of land records. “In Madhya Pradesh, we are drawing new maps on heritage maps of cities that were once villages. For vertical development, the names of multiple apartment owners will be entered against the land parcel in the map.

Meanwhile, Gujarat has chosen a different model. Raj Kumar Beniwal, vice-chairman and chief executive officer of the Gujarat Urban Development Mission, said revenue records and property details in urban areas have been digitized, and the data is shared with the survey offices of each city as well as the state government’s e-mail. is available. Nagar Portal, a citizen service portal.

Beniwal said, “We are in the process of integrating all the data regarding properties, land records, citizen services, property taxation and transactions. Different agencies have their own data regarding the property. We are adding all this so that whenever a property transaction is registered at the sub-registrar’s office, the details are automatically updated in the records of all other agencies – like urban local bodies for property tax, water supply department etc. ‘

There are 165 urban local bodies including eight large municipal corporations. In Gujarat, “We started this exercise two years back and till now 75 per cent work has been completed. Once this is done, people will be able to do all the paper work related to property online and they will not have to visit each and every department personally,” he said.


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rural areas ahead

According to a press note from the central government, records of rights (ownership documents) have been computerized under DILRMP in 94.7 per cent villages (6.22 lakh villages) out of 6.57 lakh rural villages in the country.

DIRLMP was launched in 2008 as the National Land Records Modernization Program, and renamed in 2016. Under the centrally-funded programme, the revenue departments have Computerization and integration of land records, sub-registrar offices and revenue courts, setting up modern record rooms, and integrating the land records database with Aadhaar (which is currently voluntary) by 2025-26.

“As on date, about 93 per cent of the 5,303 sub-registrar offices in the country are computerised,” said Sonmoni Bora, joint secretary in the Department of Land Resources under the Ministry of Rural Development.

He said, “In India, each State/UT has its own land information management systems. The Department’s initiatives or reforms take care of the different systems of land management across States/UTs and at the same time, allow citizens to receive quality services uniformly through DILRMP. These initiatives keep the services transparent, speedy and targeted.

(Edited by Smriti Sinha)


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