Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said “rural land-related actions will include assignment of unique land parcel identification numbers or Bhu-Aadhaar for all lands, digitisation of cadastral maps, survey of map sub-divisions as per current ownership, establishment of land registry, and linking to the farmers registry”. Photo: https://dolr.gov.in/ulpin/
The 2024-2025 Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman promised a few reforms related to land and land use in the country ranging from their identification to planning and potentially drawing from multiple domains.
Ms. Sitharaman said “land-related reforms and actions, both in rural and urban areas, will cover land administration, planning and management, and urban planning, usage and building bylaws”. According to her, these activities are to be completed in three years with “appropriate fiscal support”.
She added that “rural land-related actions will include assignment of unique land parcel identification numbers or Bhu-Aadhaar for all lands, digitisation of cadastral maps, survey of map sub-divisions as per current ownership, establishment of land registry, and linking to the farmers registry”.
On the urban front, the Minister continued saying: “Land records…will be digitised with GIS mapping. An IT-based system for property record administration, updating, and tax administration will be established. These will also facilitate improving the financial position of urban local bodies.”
Ms. Sitharaman also said that on the back of a successful pilot project, the Indian government “in partnership with States will facilitate the implementation of the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in agriculture for coverage of farmers and their lands in 3 years.” This programme will include a “digital survey” of the kharif crop in 400 districts and the land details being brought into a “land registry”.
Ms. Sitharaman said these actions will “facilitate credit flow and other agricultural services” vis-a-vis rural land.
“Incentivising States for action on reforms around land, in both rural and urban areas, is a welcome move,” Deepa Jha, who works on land governance issues at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bengaluru, told The Hindu. “It also points towards a recognition that States are the key actors on these issues, and that approaches and constraints can vary across States.”
Overall better land registries and cadastral maps are key to understanding land-use around the country, to enforce building codes, and to evaluate the risks due to various hazards, including natural disasters. Information about land-use and land-use change are also key to understand India’s emissions inventory.
The Minister’s statement “recognises the need for an integrated overview of land administration and land/property record modernisation, building from existing efforts so far,” Ms. Jha further said, adding: “This encompasses rural and urban elements, while attempting to not get locked into the traditional urban-rural binary.”
“The stress on digital mapping of land records and the stress on housing will provide good opportunities for downstream companies to use space technologies for these activities,” Arup Dasgupta, Distinguished Professor in the Academy of Geoinformatics, Bhaskaracharya Institute of Space Applications and Geoinformatics, Gandhinagar, said.
However, India has been trying to develop such land maps since the 1980s, with limited success. One particular pitfall has been lack of standards. According to Prateep Basu, CEO of decision analytics startup SatSure, these maps have been made by “manual digitisation” and are not properly georeferenced, i.e. the digital data is not mapped to fixed geographical coordinates. He also said States have used different mapping projections, so maps prepared by one State’s processes are not directly compatible with those of another.
“Basically, first GIS data standards and interoperability for different end uses should be defined. Then only such initiatives succeed,” Mr. Basu said.
“These efforts also need technology support and upgrading; while appropriate and enabling institutional arrangements will need to be worked out at state and city levels,” Ms. Jha added.
