The Andhra Pradesh government’s decision to do a comprehensive resurvey of lands assumes significance as the last such exercise dates back to almost a century. The present target is to map lands in more than 17,340 villages in three phases and complete it by August 2023.
The destination is in sight but it is going to take a gargantuan effort to purify the existing land database as the Revenue and other departments and the Survey of India (SoI) with which an MoU has been signed for technological and manpower support, have to get their act together to accomplish the task of mapping 1.26 lakh square kilometres in a time-bound manner.
However, having successfully taken the significant first step towards the goal with a pilot project at Takkellapadu village in Krishna district, the government is confident of carrying out the survey without any major impediment.
The fresh survey records will be digitised to eliminate any scope for manipulation.
The survey will have over 14,000 trained personnel deployed across the State and they will be aided by drones, rovers and mobile workstations. Besides, the services of sub-registrars and village secretariats are being utilised to map lands given the complexity of the project and the need to clean up and update the records.
Foolproof database
The ultimate goal of the resurvey is to create a database of all immovable properties that serves as a conclusive record of titles. Once the survey is completed, the land owners will be given title deeds, maps, village records and unique identity numbers of the properties as per the AP Land Titling Bill, 2020 which has been passed in the winter session of the legislature.
The Bill provides for the constitution of land titling tribunals and land titling appellate tribunals which will not be bound by the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 but guided by the principles of natural justice.
In the present system, documents related to immovable properties are registered under the Registration Act of 1908. The new piece of legislation is aimed at introducing a ‘guaranteed titling system’.
Neerabh Kumar Prasad, the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration, tells The Hindu that the last such detailed survey and settlement was done in 1928-31 when the ‘Grama kantam’ lands were shown as ‘outside areas’.
These lands would have maps for the first time, for which the Revenue, Panchayat Raj and other line departments are doing the preparatory work.
The resurvey began with the deployment of one drone per district and their total number would go up to 100 in due course.
Each land parcel would have its boundaries marked with stones and backed by geo coordinates (latitude and longitude), which makes the records tamper-proof even if the stones are changed or removed altogether.
Initially, agricultural lands and village habitations are being covered and the project will be eventually extended to municipal areas. The most important thing in the entire exercise is to check whether mutations have been carried out and do them wherever required as per the due process of law.
