9.8 Crore Rural Land Parcels Tagged With Unique Number, Project to be Rolled Out for Urban India Too

A total of 9.8 crore land parcels in rural India across 27 states now have a digital 14-digit alpha-numeric ID or ‘Bhu-Aadhar’, with five states — Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar — leading the numbers under the Centre’s flagship Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP) aimed to check fraud and minimise land disputes in the country, said officials.

Maharashtra, which has been carrying out land reforms, has the highest coverage with 2.58 crore land parcels being given the digital ID. This is followed by Jharkhand (2.27 crore), Madhya Pradesh (2.03 crore), Andhra Pradesh (2 crore) and Bihar (1.97 crore), News18 has learnt.

Bhu-Aadhaar or Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPlN) is an initiative under DILRMP to facilitate geospatial applications for reducing boundary disputes and facilitating prompt and targeted delivery of services to the citizens.

ULPIN is a 14-digit alpha-numeric ID based on geo- referenced geo-coordinates of vertices of the parcel having longitudinal and latitudinal details. These details comply with the Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (ECCMA) and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards.

“The unique ID has ownership details of the plot besides its size and geo-coordinates and will be very helpful in resolving boundary disputes of land parcels. The next step is to link the IDs with the Aadhaar number of its owners to establish land and its holders’ relationship. These numbers could further be used in extending various agrarian and other services across the sectors,” said Sonmoni Borah, joint secretary, Department of Land Resources (DoLR).

DILRMP is a flagship scheme of DoLR under the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). The scheme aims to check fraud, weed out duplicity and minimise litigation on land-related disputes.

“While land records are being digitised across the country’s rural pockets, every state has a different system of registering land parcels, with high probability of duplicity in the names and numbers of plots in each village. This is where the unique ID will become a single and authentic source of reference for identifying land ownership,” he added.

According to the government, projects being stalled over litigation involving land disputes cause a 1.3 per cent GDP loss to the economy. At least 66 per cent of all civil suits in India are related to land or property disputes, and the average pendency of a land acquisition dispute is 20 years.

The Next Step

“The department intends to roll out ULPIN across the country by March 2024. A pilot is done by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) at central level based on geo-referenced cadastral maps and then formula is given to states for field testing and replication,” a senior official said.

The Centre plans to launch a similar initiative of assigning unique IDs to land parcels in urban India as well, the background work for which has already started. Land and property is one of the major themes for the upcoming chief secretaries’ conference to be chaired by the prime minister with the key ministries, including Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and MoRD.

“This is like a brainstorming session on crucial projects and themes which is organised every year for two-three days and is attended by chief secretaries of all states. It is likely to be held in October,” the official said.

The project has been implemented by 27 states/UTs so far while pilot testing has been done by six other states including — Karnataka, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar, Manipur, Delhi and Telangana.

However, it’s a mammoth task, with its own challenges. “At the central level, it was observed that several states are not coming forward for the project while many other states are facing problems in generating geo-referenced cadastral maps due to survey related issues, lack of capacity building and resources,” the official said.