CLR delivers grassroots e-governance

Computerisation of Land Records (CLR) is a mission that aims at delivering excellent grassroots e-governance within the domain of land management in India. This can be successfully accomplished by bringing in land reforms and by utilising the far-reaching potential of IT. In a true sense, CLR could safely claim to be the first initiative of e-governance in India at the grassroots level. This project envisages a land management system that generates resource intelligence necessary to maintain equilibrium in relationship between man and his land. This relationship encompasses a multitude of users, namely farmers, landowners, administrators, planners and other service providers.

The CLR project is being implemented in 569 districts out of about 599 districts in the country The Centre has provided around Rs 4 lakh per tehsil/taluk for installation of hardware and software in 2,426 tehsils/talukas, out of about 6,000 in the country

Through this, it is expected that the government can reach out to the rural population specifically and provide better services in terms of efficiency and time. The land management system is responsive and transparent, enabling good governance in one of the most significant sectors of the Indian economy.

In India, land ownership is in the name of individuals and not the state. After independence, due importance was given to this segment. In 1985, it was resolved at the Conference of Revenue Ministers to computerise land records on a pilot basis. This centrally sponsored scheme on CLR was started in 1988-89 with an intention of removing problems inherent in the manual system of maintenance and updating of land records to meet the requirements of various groups of users. It began as a pilot project in eight districts: Rangareddy (AP), Sonitpur (Assam), Singhbhum (Bihar), Gandhinagar (Gujarat), Morena (MP), Wardha (Maharashtra), Mayurbhanj (Orissa), and Dungarpur (Rajasthan). It was decided that efforts should be made to computerise core data contained in land records, so as to assist development planning and to make records accessible to people/planners/administrators. Further, the scheme was extended to other districts as well.

When the scheme was reviewed in 1993-94 it was observed that states were finding it difficult to sustain the project due to non-availability of skilled manpower, hardware maintenance, etc. So, it was decided to use NIC’s infrastructure and network. NIC upgraded its district centres with the latest hardware and software and states were requested to allocate one room near the NIC district centre to start data entry operations. The Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) & NIC are collaborating in the implementation of the project.

The focus of the entire operation has always been to employ IT to transform the existing land record system of the country, thereby ensuring an efficient, accurate and transparent delivery mechanism and conflict resolution in ownership. The key features are the availability of an electronic land record to land owners at nominal rates, information empowerment of land owners, low-cost and easily reproducible data for reliable and durable preservation, value addition and modernisation in land administration and integration with other data sets for comprehensive listing.

The manual system of land records in the country is an age-old system and each state has its own specific way of maintaining records. There are several traditional ways of transfer and recording of ownership of lands. These transfers should rightly represent shares and inheritance. Each plot is assigned a particular identity number, for which particulars of owners and respective shares are recorded in actual fractions. For assessment of tax, land categories and crop-related details are also recorded. Village officers are supposed to update these records every harvesting season. Once the transfer has been properly notified it should be duly registered. But in actual practice, the system has not been duly adhered to and thereby the village book that records the transactions is the only document with legal standing in maximum cases. Every owner is given a reference map depicting the boundaries and location of plots. An ownership document and a document containing physical details of the land are also given along with this, referred to as Records of Right (ROR).

In order to develop appropriate software, the LRIS division of NIC carried out a detailed system study the existing manual set-up in 17 states. It was noted that these systems were similar to the extent of 60-70 percent in functionality, projecting a requirement for customisation. As per the agreement with all concerned it was decided that initially only attribute data would be converted in electronic formats initially. For this purpose, a data entry module was developed in DOS or a Unix/Foxbase environment. The subsequent and mandatory requirement was to provide for data updates, data verification and validation. To facilitate all these operations, NIC equipped its district centres with appropriate hardware and software. With consistent efforts on the part of NIC officials, most states could successfully complete this stage.

By this time, technology had changed considerably and a requirement to capture all functions in the workflow in a GUI environment surfaced. Thus the operation came face-to-face with the usual problems of change management, configuration management and technology obsolescence. Porting of data for more than 5,000 talukas posed yet another challenge. Subsequently the Central and state units developed a new system comprising ROR, mutation (change in ownership either through mutual understanding (sale/purchase) or a court order), a customised query module and several utilities for data porting, validation and verification on the Windows platform.

NIC is extending technological support towards operationalisation at the taluk level. Implementation of such a large system in terms of number of sites and related non-technical issues, could be no less than solving a tough puzzle. Notwithstanding these issues, NIC state units have completed distribution of computerised record of rights to the public in quite a few states.

An overview of current state of affairs is as follows:
As of now, the CLR project is being implemented in 569 districts out of about 599 districts in the country. The centre has provided around Rs 4 lakh per tehsil/taluk for installation of hardware and software in 2,426 tehsils/talukas out of about 6,000 in the country. Since inception, MRD has released financial assistance of about Rs 215 crore for computerisation of land records to the states. Some of the major states where work is in progress are Goa, Karnataka, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

In order to keep a track of this huge project, periodic monitoring is being carried out by concerned agencies. In addition to these, several evaluation studies are also carried out from time-to-time by external agencies. The CLR project is of immense significance for citizens as well as lawmakers in the country. In order to utilise the potential of the information resources thus generated, it is very important to create IT awareness among grassroots functionaries and establish an integrated network for district and tehsil level users.