Surveyors to get hi-tech machines for speed, accuracy
PATNA: The state government will soon provide electronic total station (ETS) machines for measurement of land and survey work being undertaken in 20 districts to newly recruited amins (land surveyors) as part of plans to speed up the work and to digitise land records, officials said.
The ETS machines are considered accurate in land measurements and remove manual interference in the process.
“We are in the process of providing these machines in bulk so that there is more transparency in the measurement of land and corrupt practices are weeded out,” said revenue and land reforms minister Ram Surat Kumar.
He said the process of purchasing the ETS machines was in the final stages and the distribution would start from October onwards.
In Bihar, land survey being held in 20 districts is at different stages like Kistawar (mapping), Khanapurthi (filling the blanks), Tasdiq (attestation). The Kistawar and Khanapurthi are the two main stages of field survey where surveyors and amins are put on duty to measure the land as per the records for their update based on new sale and purchase of property.
There is already a process underway to digitise the record of rights (Khatiyan) by updating the records of actual owners of the land.
Officials familiar with the matter said the revenue department is also working on a proposal to introduce the system of slot booking for getting one’s land mapped by surveyors. It will ensure transparency of land mapping and provide landholders with some flexibility in getting their land mapped at a time of their choice and save them from not having to depend on others to stay at the fields when the mapping work is being done. “The proposal is under consideration,” said the minister.
For petty disputes on land related matters, the revenue department has already asked the circle officers and station house officers (SHOs) of police stations as well as subdivisional police officers to hold weekly meetings, every Saturday, to review the pendency of such cases and take measures for resolving them.
The home and revenue departments, along with Bihar Prashashanik Sudhar Mission, are also working on a plan to segregate land dispute cases by assessing their nature and complexity by providing a unique code to categorise them into personal land dispute, government land encroachment, disputes over land measurement and cases pending at various courts. Officials said the process would be implemented soon and a software is being developed for it.
In Bihar, land dispute is a key reason behind heinous crimes. As per data of the National Crime Records Bureau for 2019, land dispute was the reason in 782 of the total 3,138 murder cases reported in the year.
The minister said the government will soon be posting 566 revenue officers at the block level to assist circle officers in handling revenue related matters. “The posting of new revenue officers would ease the load on circle officers, who also have to look after law and order duty and other work, which affects disposal of land-related cases,” Kumar said.
New law in works
A new legislation to resolve land disputes and fixing accountability on officers to dispose of mutation petitions in a timebound manner is also being considered by the revenue department.
Officials familiar with the matter said the proposed law would enable families in disputes among coparceners (parties holding rights in a property) to go for mutation by majority even if one of the parties is against it.
For instance, if there are four brothers, of which three want to divide their ancestral land but one of them is against it, the rest of the three brothers could move to get the land mutated if there is a consensus among them.
The idea behind the new law is to update land records to the extent possible. Non-division of ancestral land or problems in mutation continues to remain one of the major obstacles in the updating land records because of disputes among families over division and sale of land. “We are working on a new law,” said minister Kumar.