Land Records Automation

A case study on Punjab Land Records Automation

Organization Overview

The Deputy Commissioner, Jalandhar is responsible for maintenance of land records in district Jalandhar. To do this, he has an organization consisting of SDMs, Tehsildars, Naib Tehsildars, Kanungos, and Patwaris. Each Patwari is responsible for two to four villages, depending on their size and maintains the following records:

• Jamabandi (Record of Rights)
  
• Register Intkaal (Mutations Register)
  
• Khasra Girdawari (Harvest Inspection Register)
  
• Shajra Nasb (Genealogy Table)
  
• Field Maps
  
• Field Measurement Book
  
• Roznaamcha Waqiati (Daily Journal)

The Jamabandi contains the list of all owners; whenever changes to this happen, the changes are recorded in the Mutations Register. At the end of five years, all the changes to ownership are incorporated into the Jamabandi, and a new Jamabandi is written. Since a Patwari is responsible for more than one village, almost every year he has the work of preparing the Jamabandi.

Problem

Preparation of Jamabandi and re-writing of all other records is a tedious process and has been recognized as an ideal task to be computerized, way back in 1984. Since then, the Ministry of Rural Development, and the Ministry of Information Technology have spent more than 300 crores of rupees in digitizing the Record of Rights across the states. In spite of the huge amount of money spent, nobody is using the data.

This shows the problem involved in computerizing land records. Various conventions have evolved over time, which are not properly documented; these are a sort of unwritten set of rules being followed by generations of Patwaris. Overall, the field has become so complicated that among trainee IAS Officers, 'Revenue' is seen as an ocean, whose depth one seldom succeeds in finding. Thus, lack of domain knowledge is the main reason why the previous attempts were not successful.

The problem, thus, is not computerization of land records alone, but "to ensure that computerized land records are properly used in day to day activity".

Solution

Having analyzed the problem, Pioneer focused on gaining domain knowledge. On one hand, the company has engaged retired revenue officers and on the other hand, a team of highly qualified technology experts have been deputed to gain domain knowledge; the team learnt to read and write Punjabi so that they can read the records first hand. Software Engineers and System Analysts have been trained to function as Patwaris and were asked to manually transcribe a new Jamabandi based on an old Jamabandi and corresponding mutations. Over nine months, first hand domain knowledge had been built up and the same had been demonstrated to the DC, Jalandhar.

Then, in an open bidding process, Pioneer won the account ahead of such competitors as TCS and Satyam to execute the project. The salient feature of the solution is the integrated approach to computerizing land records.

The Sub-Registrar's office is closely linked (90% of all mutation originate in the Sub-Registrar's Office); so this has been fully integrated with the solution. To integrate the cadastral maps, tried and tested GIS (Geographical Information System) software components have been used, so that the main interface between users and the system is based on maps. If they click on any land parcel, they get to see the details of ownership and the land. If any changes are required, like partitioning of land parcels, they can be made on the map itself.

To enable Patwaris (normal education is still 10+2), to do this, an user-friendly interface had been developed. All the notations and conventions had been captured in the data structures so that the existing practices can be implemented without major changes. The different kind of mutations had been studied in minute detail so that they can be effectively handled by the software. All this effort resulted in the automatic generation of Jamabandi, something that was initially considered not possible by revenue experts. The other features of the system include native language support in Punjabi language and the application is totally web-enabled (including the maps) without requiring any modifications.

Advantages

This third generation land records software, which generates the new Jamabandi automatically, offers the following benefits:

• Improved Efficiency. Patwaris save up to six months of labour every year, thus allowing them to handle their jobs much better.

• Fraud Control. Since the records are computerized in such a way they can be used in day-to-day activities, making changes to the records becomes extremely difficult. Even so, any changes made are recorded in a separate log and full access to the audit trail had been provided to the senior officers.

• Reduced Litigation. As a result of this, the accuracy of the records has been improved and this leads to a dramatic reduction in land-related litigation. Thus Tehsildars and other officers now have more time to dispose off their duties much better as their court work is reduced.

• Better Services to Citizens. Citizens can now get their work done faster and can access their records with minimum fuss.

FAQ's

What is LIS?

LIS refers to a well networked information system covering a wide range of spatial information that includes data on land, water, weather, environment and socio-economic aspects. Growth of population on a static land base always leads to expanded land markets with monopsonic price pressures. Therefore, sourcing tools available under Information Technology for improving the highly congested land markets becomes imperative. Both administrators and users take recourse to efficient LIS that incorporates data collection, updation, dissemination and distribution. It involves integrating system objectives with the goals of the users.

Who are the Users of LIS?

Users refer to categories of people or institutions who share a common interest in a piece of land, be it an individual plot, area under the occupation of a community, a natural conversion area, a region or a country. All interest groups-be it people or institutions- having interest in land are concerned about ownership, rights, restrictions and responsibilities on the land. Government - Revenue Administration, and the owners as well as lessees of land, lenders and insurers are the principal users of the LIS.
Government is in charge of the entire land administration system. It is therefore in the legal, social and economic interest of the government to have an efficient LIS.

What are the Users' interests?

The User interests invariably lie in the provision of up-to-date, complete and reliable land information in digital form and its speedy and easy accessibility and susceptibility to customization.
LIS products and services should be available across the length and breadth of the country. Security of title is their prime concern.
In a business environment, however, the LIS architectures are to be process-oriented, customer-focused, and optimized in terms of cost, quality, effectiveness and flexibility. It should be functional at the lowest unit of administration at the village level.

When LIS is considered a success?

When LIS could embrace different tenure systems across the country in an effective manner, it will be a success, for land tenure touches the hearts of the people and the latent human feelings of dependency and inter-dependency due to supply constraints. Governments usually apply four criteria to judge the efficacy of the land tenure systems: equity, compatibility, continuity and efficiency. Efficiency of the system would enable the smooth operation of land markets.

What are the prerequisites for establishing a good LIS?

Legal, administrative, technical and judicial reforms are crucial and they all impinge on the Registration System. Some of the States like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka kept the following aims for reforms to the registration system:

• Transparent pricing system.
  
  
• Providing legal protection to rightful claimants of property.
  
  
• Contributing to quick, safe, simple transfer, of establishment or cancellation of rights.
  
  
• Quick and easy delivery of titles registered to the rightful owners.

Why is it so complicated?

Nearly 20 registers are being maintained by Revenue Department and the actual number varies from State to State. Different systems of Land Management also exist across the States although they broadly fall into the Ryotwari and Inamdari systems. The various registers and records are again known by different names in all these States. The principal records are: (a) Village Maps (Tippans in the erstwhile Nizam's regime which extends to parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra)-this indicates the village and field boundaries in graphic form, not necessarily drawn to any uniform scale; (b) Field Measurement Books (Khasra)-index to the map usually indicates the changes in the field boundaries, their area, particulars of tenure holders, type of irrigation, area under cropping, other uses of land etc.,; and (c) Record of Rights that reflects the names and classes of tenure of all occupants. The ROR by itself was not a title until the State Governments passed a separate enactment for the purpose. The diversities in tenure, language differences, cultural practices, methods of field measurement etc., make the exercise of development of suitable software difficult. In addition, if the mutations were to be carried out on an on-going basis and these can arise by way of family partitions, gifts, sub-divisions, fragmentations, sale and purchase, then these need authentication and acceptance by the administration and stakeholders respectively. This would mean that necessary data warehousing, firewalls and security would have to be built into the software.

What should Information Technology do in the LIS?

• It should provide the administration a truly automated land records system, integrating Record of Rights (ROR) and cadastral maps that should conform to the numerous rules and regulations in vogue.
• It should accuracy and efficiency and eliminates the scope for manipulation and malpractice.
• It should make the system useful for all the segments of government administration and citizens within the confines of security and confidentiality.
• It should generate revenues on a self-sustainable basis.

What should the software on Land Records do?

It should integrate (a) the textual record of rights (b) cadastral maps (c) other documents maintained by various revenue officials that together forms the LIS (d) regional language output (e) geographical information system tools that operate on digital maps and (f) data conversion, cleaning, updation and audit. It should provide for adequate user-defined security for the entire data and facilitate access by all citizens with convenience and ease of operation. It should incorporate a rule-based engine that accommodates all the existing rules in their various permutations and combinations. It should be in a position to carry out all the types of mutations like partitioning, gift, sale, sub-division on-line from the village to the sub-registry.

Why should the software provide for linkage with the sub-registry?

It is a well known fact that most of the transactions on land take place through registration of documents at the District/sub-registrar's office. The sale of land involves change of ownership. Unless this change is reflected in the ROR, the land records do not represent the factual position. Usually, till such time either of the parties affected in the mutation request for it the change is not incorporated. It is common experience that ownership and possession are at variance as a consequence. Therefore, any software on the LIS should provide for carrying out the transactions in registry offices till the final stage of their incorporation in the village land records. Net-worked and web based outputs should also be possible.

Who will benefit?

The village administrative officers (Patwaris/Karanams)
These grass-roots level functionaries can generate all their records like the ROR, Field Measurement Books, Field Map Registers with the click of a mouse and also carry out mutations on-line.
Real time and verifiable outputs are generated for use of the higher level revenue administration that will help them in resolving all land disputes with ease and speed.
The Citizens:
Land holding data in native language together with the field map is available for the citizens at affordable cost and at higher revenues for the State.
Transparency of records will help the farmers' access to credit from the lending agencies and insurance for the crops grown by them.
Land Data can be integrated with the Citizenship data and commercial data so that at one kiosk the citizen can access a birth or death certificate, nativity and caste certificates, payment systems for various facilities that the Government provides, market and weather information for crop planning and management by the farmers in due course with marginal self-generated investments.

Sardar vikram Singh sent a cable to his friend Mr. Kartar Singh in Jullundar requesting for a plot of 2 hectare irrigated agricultural land as he would like to return to India after a gap of 25 long years and settle down in commercial farming. Mr. Kartar Singh did not take much time to flash back a message that the request can be easily attended if he were prepared to pay an advance of 75 percent of the cost of land plus costs for handling the transaction. Vikram wanted to see the prototype of the title and the field map. Data and map were sent but they were five years old. No mutations were carried out either in the land record or field map. Vikram was not very sure although Kartar promised that everything would be alright. Land markets in India are primitive. Buyers and sellers of land depend on the Almighty and transact the land businesses. 50 percent of the operational holdings in any State are plagued by legal disputes. These disputes arise on account of ownership. Sub-division and fragmentation of land holdings is a natural phenomenon that takes place in India on account of the excessive emphasis on heritage rights. Over and above this there are lots of areas where the State itself is the owner. Due to either misuse or abuse of power, the revenue authorities have allowed encroachments into the State's properties. The encroachers have been given titles by default in several cases. Then, there were land reforms. Defective implementation of land records has again led to conferment of titles in the hands of those that used them for their own purposes. Such lands also got titles conferred over a period of time. Apart from all these complications, the mafia and the politically powerful had their own ways of acquiring lands and retaining their position and it has no relationship either with legitimacy or legality. Lands have been partitioned for a variety of purposes and these did not go on record. There is no State in India where the land records are updated and all the latest mutations carried out .

Though Land constitutes an important factor of production, reforms in Land markets are yet to be touched. Reforms in Agricultural sector viewed as part of the reforms in the factors of production that contributes to nearly one third of the GDP are in their incipient stage. Agricultural policy changes during the past decade have altered the comparative advantages of landlords and tenants. Today, one will find more and more tenants cultivating farm lands than the owners despite the number of operational holdings showing an increase consistently without corresponding increase in the area of operational holdings. Government of India and different State Governments spent more than Rs.500crores on Computerization of Land Records (CLR) during the past ten years; still, not much has happened on this front. This is because of the vested interests that would like to perpetuate the present status.

LBS National Academy of Mussorie has a dedicated research wing to filter all the experiments in computerization and to recommend measures for speeding up the process. Their November 2001 seminar recommended to the States the following:
Software for Computerization of Land Records should have:-

o Online Mutation
o GUI Based Software
o Link offices of Sub-Registrar/ Talukas/Tehsildars etc

2 .Networking should connect District,Sub-Division,Taluka Offices.

3. Registration of documents relating to Land Records should be the source data for updating.

4. Land Records Computerization and registration data should be
converted to mutation and then incorporated in the record of rights.

Government of Karnataka developed a software named Bhoomi. But, this software has not given that much relief as expected either to the farmer in accessing a Record of Rights (ROR) truly reflecting the position obtaining on the field or to the revenue administration in carrying the mutations on line and as and when they take place. The problems with cadastral mapping and cadastral information remain as the data digitized continues to be defective. GIS utilization proves cumbersome under such circumstances as the sum of parts is never equal to the whole. The Village maps through remote sensing application and as reflected in the Survey of India maps do not match. Although solution lies in re-surveying, it is expensive. Some smaller States like Pondicherry, Goa etc could complete the data updation and digitization successfully because of the very limited number of operational holdings. States like Orissa completed re-surveying but the data on LRs has not been fully updated. States like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have involved private enterprises to carry out the tasks involved in CLR but could not complete them due to severe limitation on resources. Whatever efforts were there, they were only on pilot basis. The States look to the Centre for financial resources to carry out the task. But the Centre is unsure of commitment of the States for this purpose and therefore would like to have a participation model.

Limited initiatives of finance for land purchases from credit institutions are severely constrained by the lack of ROR and similar fate befalls on the credit for farming operations. Imperfections in land markets, land being an important factor of production, will lead to serious imbalances in agricultural production and investments in the CLR on public-private participation model do not brook any further delay.

NEED FOR POLICY:

"Historically, land was abundant and was held communally or could be obtained by any who laid first claim to it. But as population grew, land in many parts of the world - specifically agricultural land - became more scarce, until its relative scarcity raised its value." (World Development Report 2002, p. 32).

In India, owing to a multitude of economic and non-economic factors, the average size of land holdings has declined from 2.57 hectares in 1950-51 to 1.57 hectares in 1990-91. The shrinking size of land holding on one hand, and fragmentation on the other, which led the farmers to hold land in disaggregated pieces and parcels spread over in different revenue villages, made management of agriculture an uneconomic proposition. Therefore, consolidation of land holdings was thought of.

Although the programme of consolidation of holdings was suggested to State Governments five decades back, it did not take place in several States excepting in Punjab, Haryana and in Uttar Pradesh partly.

ASCI study (2001) has pointed out the following impediments to implementation of the strategy of consolidation of land holdings:

- unwillingness on the part of farmers because of sentimental attachment of the property they were holding
- inadequate compensation provision in terms of substitutability of assets
- cumbersome procedures
- lack of political will
- bias towards the rich in the implementation mechanism
- lack of financial resources

Therefore, the policy has to address adequately the above issues.

In the context of the Agreement on Agriculture in the WTO, the farmers need to look at agriculture not just as a subsistence occupation, but as a commercial occupation. From this angle, consolidation of land holdings would appear to be a viable alternative. This alternative shall not, however, infringe on the basic rights of the farmer to the asset he holds. There are arguments and counter-arguments to the size neutrality in keeping this land as an economic asset. Still, the fact that a larger land holding is more amenable for superior technology adoption has been established beyond doubt. The recent amendment to the Companies Bill providing for producer cooperatives to reorganize themselves into companies is a facilitation in the right direction.

Consolidation would also help in generating environment-friendly agricultural operations (e.g. the effects of acquaculture on agriculture in freshwater cultivating farms in States like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Orissa, West Bengal, etc.).

Societal Impacts:

Caste barriers continue to cast their shadow on consolidation efforts. Neutralising this factor would appear to be impossible at the moment with the help of any policy instrumentation. The only way out is through the use of participatory mechanisms and also, sometimes, a long wait. "Let things simmer down. They will take care of themselves" has worked in some situations.
Viewing in these perspectives, what should be the objectives of policy?

The objectives of policy on Consolidation of Land Holdings shall be:

(i) to make farming operations commercial
(ii) to facilitate implementation of higher level of technology in farming operations
(iii) to provide for flexibility in dealing with land markets
(iv) to protect and preserve the rights of farmers to the assets and production processes.
Role of States:
In order that these objectives are properly subserved, the States should embark upon:
(a) vigorous concept-selling through panchayats and other sub-district levels (mandals, blocks)
(b) the States should demonstrate their pro-poor stance in devising the compensatory mechanisms
(c) participatory mechanisms must be put in place in arriving at land consolidation.

Policy Instruments:

- Peripatetic teams should be constituted at the sub-district levels to work with small groups for convincing the Small and Marginal farmers on the advantages of consolidation. This should be a continuous exercise in order to prevent further subdivision or fragmentation.
- Hindu Succession Act and other State-level enactments facilitating subdivision and fragmentation should be amended to ensure that the consolidation one does not get affected without, at the same time, eroding the rights of the successive generation of farmers.
- At the State level, the Revenue Department, as an instrument of implementation, should be restructured to address the concerns of this exercise.

Procedures for Consolidation of Land Holdings:

- Procedures for consolidation of land holdings should be simple, easy to follow and transparent to all the stakeholders.
- Village committees on Land Consolidation (VCLC) should display, at the Village Panchayat, the list of land holdings with the present inheritors' names aimed at consolidation. This list should be discussed at the Gram Sabha and consensus arrived at on (a) compensation and (b) nature of consolidation - whether to merge with X,Y,Z abutting the holding aimed at consolidation.
- Valuation of all lands should be done with the help of the Village Committee. The date of consolidation should also be arrived at in the Village Committee by mutual consent.
- Law should prohibit alienability of a piece or parcel of consolidated holding. In case there are no heirs to a landowner as prescribed in the inheritance laws, the State shall take over that piece or parcel of land getting usufructory rights and shall not disturb the consolidation through its own alienation processes.
- A suitable model legislation should be evolved for the States to adopt providing for the implementation of the above laid down policy. This new Law will also specify the new contours of regulation.

COMPUTERIZATION OF LAND RECORDS:
Computerization of Land Records will help in establishing formal land rights in a simple fashion, which might even enable convert occupancy rights into full title. Speeding up this process through digitization, security systems and firewalls built appropriately to access information, etc., will go a long way in stabilizing land markets and help the States in earning more land revenues.

Funding Mechanisms

The resources for instituting enabling mechanisms for consolidation of land holdings should come from appropriate allocations in the States' budgets. Government of India would, at best, be a facilitator in the whole process, ironing out any issues arising between the States in the efforts of consolidation.

OLTP - Single Window Governance

A case study on Andhra Pradesh (AP) Government

Organisation Overview

This is a solution offered to the Govt. of AP, which is in the fore-front of e-governance. AP had already executed a pilot project called TWINS, where citizens were offered various services such as getting a driving license, payment of utilities bills, and access to land records through a single window. AP government wanted to extend a similar single-window service to the rural areas.

Problem

Seven different offices (Mandal Revenue Office, Mandal Parishad Development Office, APTRANSCO - for payment of electricity bills; Sub-Registrar's Office, where CARD was running, Panchyat Office, Primary Health Centre etc.) were to be connected so that citizens may access all the services and carry out their transactions through a single window. This could be a kiosk at a bus stand, or over the Internet. In some of the offices legacy systems were running; and in some offices application software had to be developed from ground up.

The challenges were two fold: One was to network the different offices in a Mandal HQ town, and then to vertically integrate the different offices to their District and Hyderabad Offices; the second challenge was to integrate the wide variety of platforms (Novell, Dos, Windows based, Unix), applications (developed in C, Developer 2000, Power Builder, VB etc.), and databases (FoxPro, MS SQL, Oracle, DB/2 etc.) and in the process to build a framework in to which other departments or offices can be plugged in.

Solution

Pioneer offered to develop a N-tier, Platform-independent application in Java. The entire application runs on IBM's Web Sphere Application Server, on top of which the Message Queuing (MQ) software is deployed. With an MQ software, the demands on the underlying network decrease. Instead of always-on connectivity (which is prohibitively expensive to replicate in the 1100 mandals of AP), dial-up connections will be the alternative, where the traffic is lighter. The advantage of IBM MQ Series is that it has 39 inbuilt APIs, which communicate seamlessly with all the databases and operating systems being currently used by Govt. of AP.

This solution integrates seven departments and offers single window services for all the seven without in any way intruding upon the existing applications.

Advantages

• Technology for single window governance application is demonstrated
• Cost effective networking is possible (extensive use of dial-ups) by using Message Queuing software (which allows different applications to send their transaction details to the main server at different times, at the same time ensuring data integrity)
• Existing applications not disturbed
  
• A framework has been built onto which new departments or services can be plugged in.
• Platform independent application ensures that this can be added as the nth tier at a later date for integrating either with Govt. of India applications or applications of other states.
  
• N-tier application ensures that changes made in databases (addition of a new field or detail for instance), or business logic (new rules for processing aid applications for instance), or presentation layer do not disturb other layers.
• Provision for citizen database and land database has been made which will ensure that the main information about the state is available; and also ensures that different applications have a common base. For instance, the electricity connection, passport application, police cases, and land owned by an individual can all be co-related