Background
The land is both an asset and a source of livelihood for poor people in rural areas. Many informal jobs in the urban areas were lost due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. This resulted in reverse migration, leading to greater demands for household resources in rural areas.
DI-LRMP Scheme:
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The government of India’s Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DI-LRMP) scheme is the most recent effort to update land records.
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DI-LRMP provides a common framework for reporting the progress of land record management by states/UTs.
Hurdles:
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The poor state of land records is due to the failure of the Indian administration to evolve from British-era land policies.
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Diverse Provisions among states:
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Land record regulations and policies vary widely across Indian states/union territories.
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Diverse nature of regulations/guidelines for land record management in India makes the progress non-uniform.
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The lack of skilled manpower in the departments of land records.
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Poor cooperation across land record departments. These are,
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Revenue department as the custodian of textual records,
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The survey and settlement department managing the spatial records
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The registration department is responsible for registering land transactions.
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Weak linkage between the revenue department and the survey and settlement department. This creates a huge difference between the land area reported by the textual and spatial record. This can increase the chances of legal disputes over the definition of boundaries and the extent of a land plot.