Land records to be digitised by 2020

Amit Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Jammu, January 10

In a major exercise to ensure transparency, J&K will have more advanced and accurate digital land records with satellite images by 2020.

The digital database will have all land records since 18th century when the erstwhile Dogra kings used to rule the state.

To achieve this target, the state’s revenue department has engaged the National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad, for satellite images of different land holdings in the state which are to be preserved in the form of a database to bring transparency in the system.

To curb the menace created by the land mafia in the state, the satellite images will be uploaded on the portal of the revenue department and the present records will be synchronised after cross- checking the ground maps.

“To digitalise the revenue records, we have started scanning of documents in all districts of Jammu region. It is a lengthy process and the Chief Secretary has given a deadline of June 30 to complete the scanning process. We hope that we will complete the exercise before the deadline as we have already scanned 97 per cent of the documents,” said Rifat Kohli, regional director, Survey and Land Records, Jammu.

The department has estimated that the complete digitalisation will be completed by mid 2020 as after scanning all maps and documents available since 18th century, the settlement process will be initiated and subsequently, the task of putting everything on the portal will also be done.

“The agency has been given the task for satellite images, which is expected to be done by May this year. The images need cloud-free and crop-free land to get the exact picture. After they are uploaded on the portal, they will have the name of the present as well as the previous owners of a particular land,” she said.

The settlement and digitalisation process will take about a year to get completed, she added.

J&K has thousands of land dispute cases in different courts and most of the crime incidents take place because of such disputes.

The department claims that digitalisation will give transparent and disput-free records to the owners and buyers of land and will also reduce the effort to get land records for different purposes.

Hyderabad agency engaged 

• The digital database will have all land records since 18th century when the erstwhile Dogra kings used to rule the state.

• To achieve this target, the state’s revenue department has engaged the National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad, for satellite images of different land holdings in the state which are to be preserved in the form of a database to bring transparency in the system.