Land is becoming a scarce commodity. Preservation of this valuable asset and effective management strategies assume greater importance. Our foresighted predecessors have gifted us a system for maintenance of revenue records. In the era of fast urbanization and industrialization, society at large is having high expectations from the Revenue Department on the land management related issues. It is also necessary to meet the demand for government land along with far-sighted planning of its future requirements. Hence, it is inevitable to administer matters of land management with high degree of meticulousness and ensure accuracy in maintenance of records as well. A pre-requisite of modernization of land records is to capture in-situ real time land related data with the field survey of land in possession and cultivated by farmers.
The original survey for the areas under present State of Gujarat had been carried out from 1880-1915. The technology used for the survey was chain and cross staff. The measurements for each field were written on a paper which is known as the Tippan for that particular parcel of land. The area based on the measurements taken for the land parcel was calculated manually by using a ready reckoner. The survey number, its area, the occupant of this parcel and various other characteristics of this land parcel were tabulated in a land record known as Akar Bandh. The sum total of the area of all survey number in a village not only gave the total area of the village, but also land area under various categories such as the cultivated land, the cultivable land, the uncultivable waste land, land under roads and other public purposes. What was lacking was the accuracy with regard to the measurements and the survey of land which was done with the help of technology available at that time which had its own limitations.
As per the provisions of the Gujarat Land Revenue Code, it is required to carry out resurvey at an interval of 30 years to recalculate assessment on agriculture land. Since the original survey, the State Government had not revised the revenue to be levied on agriculture land. Looking to the negligible amount of land revenue and to the benefit of land holders Gujarat Government has suspended the collection of land revenue since the year 1997.
Under National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP), the State is playing leading role in carrying out resurvey of land and it is planned to complete resurvey in entire State by year 2015 using sophisticated and latest land survey technologies like DGPS and ETS and G.I.S. based spatial data processing software (IGIS software). Digitized records will be generated by 100% survey of all agriculture land. This work is under progress and is being carried out by national level expert survey agencies under the direct supervision and guidance of the Revenue Department.
In preparation of this manual, the experience of the field level functionaries and officers involved in the resurvey has been considered as a vital component since the programme is complex and technology driven.
The ground survey has been completed in 2742 villages out of 5297 villages of 7 districts and newly finalized revenue records of 126 villages have been promulgated by the concerned Prant Offices. GIS-ready digitized village maps, taluka maps and District maps are created integrating new RoR data.
Record of Rights is considered as presumptive record. There is growing awareness among the various Government Departments about the utility of the GIS ready maps for the development planning. These maps will serve the purpose. New land record will be prepared after surveying land as per actual possession of the holder. The State Government has taken a historic decision to alter the century old iconic format of Record of Right i.e. Village Form No. 7/12, in two separate formats. After resurvey, the new Village Form No. 7 will be provided to holder with Land Parcel Map (LPM) showing details of measurement and dimensions with allied details. With these three important components of the Revenue Department i.e. Survey, Record of Rights and Registration can be integrated and immediate consequent correction in spatial data will be possible in case of mutation. The Department has initiated e-Jamin project under which this process will be easily accommodated and maintained.
The experiences of field level functionaries and officers of the Department involved in resurvey and reconstruction of the Revenue Records have been used to make the process simple in this high-tech programme. Through this publication, the department aims to provide the basic orientation to all the major stake-holders about various process and procedures related to land and its management and other important issues dealt by the Revenue and Survey Officers.
At this occasion Smt. Anandiben Patel, Hon'ble Revenue Minister, Shri. C.L.Meena, Principal Secretary, Revenue Department, Shri. M.V.Joshi, Settlement Commissioner & Director of Land Records, Shri. Hemendra Shah, Additional Secretary and Shri. Himanshu Dalwadi of the Settlement Commissionerate were present. The Manual has been prepared in English and Gujarati language.
