SRINAGAR: In a significant stride towards a transparent land records management system, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo today chaired a meeting to review the ongoing digitisation and modernisation of land records across Jammu & Kashmir.
The meeting saw the participation of key officials including the Secretary, Revenue; Secretary, IT; Secretary, Law; CEO, JaKeGA; Director, Land Records; a representative of BISAG-N; and other concerned officers.
Deputy Commissioners joined the meeting virtually from their respective offices.
The Chief Secretary emphasized the paramount importance of quality assurance in the digitisation process. He stressed the need for a robust system of checkers and approvers for data entries made by the field staff. This will ensure that every entry is meticulously cross-checked with corresponding physical records by the experienced revenue officers. He observed that the correctness of records ensures fewer grievances and fewer court cases, thereby saving the time and energy of both people and public servants.
Dulloo highlighted the far-reaching benefits of this exercise, noting that its completion would simplify crucial processes like registrations, mutations and real-time, transparent seasonal crop monitoring.
He also underscored the critical need for capacity building for the additional staff deputed for this technical work. He directed for repeated hands-on training sessions to ensure a full understanding of the assignment’s nuances for these novices.
To facilitate seamless data entry, the Chief Secretary instructed the Deputy Commissioners to establish a dedicated, fully equipped data entry centers in their districts, complete with sufficient computers, reliable internet connectivity and power backup.
He also directed for exploring the possibility of deputing another team of Survey of India to Srinagar so that field staff from Kashmir Division do not have to shuttle between Jammu and their places of posting for carrying out rectifications or other updations while doing geo-referencing of cadastral maps of their revenue villages.
Secretary Revenue, Kumar Rajeev Ranjan, presented a detailed overview of various components driving this modernisation, including the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP), Survey Of Villages And Mapping With Improvised Technology In Village Areas (SVAMITVA), National geospatial Knowledge-based land Survey of urban Habitations (NAKSHA) and generation of Unique Land Parcel Identification Numbers (ULPIN).
He gave out that for digitization of RoRs, the necessary software customisations for local adoption have been completed, and the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) committee is currently evaluating the software. The portal is slated to enter the production stage after July 1st, 2025, and will be live for data entry by July 10th, 2025, he informed.
The Secretary further added that in order to support this mammoth exercise across the 6,850 revenue villages, the department has already trained 244 Master Trainers, 1,253 Patwaris and 1,053 MTS/other staff. Furthermore, 7,000 User IDs for Patwaris/MTS for data entry had been created and a monitoring dashboard is under development, expected to be ready by July 10th, 2025.
Regarding digitization of cadastral maps, the meeting was informed that scanned maps are being geo-referenced by BISAG-N. Subsequently, field staff perform their ground truthing to ensure accuracy. So far, 6,281 maps have been shared with BISAG-N, with 5,609 received back and ground truthing completed for 2,374 maps.
In a later phase, sub-parcels will be added using a BISAG-N developed app, cross-referencing maps with real-world ground situations. This will be followed by superimposition with satellite imagery and integration with the Record of Rights for real-time land record updates.
Under the SVAMITVA program, the meeting was apprised that 4,368 out of 4,395 villages have been surveyed by the Survey of India. Ground truthing is ongoing, leading to the eventual generation of property cards by respective Tehsildars for occupants.
Additionally, it was given out that the one-year pilot NAKSHA program is going to be implemented in over 100 cities nationwide, with the Survey of India as the technical partner under DILRMP. In J&K, Bishnah and Katra in Jammu Division and Awantipora and Pattan in Kashmir Division have been selected for this project. Rovers will be purchased/hired for ground surveys, leveraging the CORS network of the Survey of India.
ULPINs, 14-digit unique alpha-numeric identifiers, are being generated for land parcels surveyed under SVAMITVA prior to property card generation. These ULPINs provide the exact location, area and other land record credentials of each parcel.
The meeting was apprised that 5,23,998 ULPINs have been generated across the UT in 1,718 villages, so far, marking a significant step towards creating a truly unique and verifiable land records system in J&K.
The ongoing efforts underscore Jammu & Kashmir’s commitment towards leveraging technology for a more efficient, transparent and citizen-friendly land administration system.
