By Umakant Lakhera: A transition is underway in Bihar. This pertains to the Special Land Survey being conducted in 45000 villages across the state. The government has appointed 10,000 officials to quicken the pace of the special survey.
Although the government has extended the date of submission of forms (Prapatra–2, Vanshavali form etc.) to March, 2025 for convenience of people at large, misgivings and confusion are reigning about the postponement of the survey. As a fact, government is all-too serious about survey which would go a long way in resolving land disputes and litigations.
Anyhow it is undeniably worth noting that the department of revenue and land reforms has already digitized 64 million revenue documents of different hues. And digitisation of 160–200 million documents is almost complete. People would get those documents by paying a certain amount of fees.
The chief objective of the Survey is to digitize the data and map of the entire land of the state in order to bring in transparency in land dealing and resolve the chronic land disputes as courts in Bihar are laden with ever-piling cases of land litigations.
“Our prime efforts are being geared up to prepare Kistwar(Plotting) and Khanapuri to ensure legitimate ownership of lands,” says Vinod Kumar Singh, Additional District Magistrate of Vaishali district in Bihar in a matter-of-factly manner.
What Singh has opined is least debatable. This is more so because in Bihar sixty percent of land-related crimes have cropped up due to missing and non-availability of Record of Right of lands with the real owner of the land. There are a sizeable number of cases—-being fought in courts of law in Bihar—-in which disingenuous elements fraudulently prepared a record of right related to lands in their names.
Upon being asked about the confusion reigning about—-among people at large—-regarding approval of filled-up Vanshavali form(Pedigree Form) such as ” from whom to seek approval on the Form ?” ; Singh forbids people to seek approval from Sarpanch(Head of a Panchayat). People themselves could certify, approve and submit it along with the self-declaration Form–2(Prapatra 2), Singh avers.
“Filling up Vanshavali(Pedigree)form by inheritors of properties is all the more necessary in case of ancestral properties of grand father, great grand father and great–great–grandfather respectively ; irrespective of the kind of ownership acquired by them such as through Khatiyan or Property Sale deed etc,” says Vipin Kumar Yadav, Settlement Officer(Bandobust Adhikari) of Vaishali district.
Yadav goes on to clarify that in ancestral properties, when property is in father’s name and agricultural rent(Bhumi–lagaan) is being paid by him ; then there is no need to prepare Vanshavali( pedigree). But if the father as an owner of land desires his property to be distributed among his sons and daughters, in that event Vanshavali Form(Pedigree Form) needs to be filled up along with Self declaration Form–2, explains Yadav.
As a matter of fact, Khatiyan is a legal government document which encompasses record of rights pertaining to Khata(Account) number, Kheasara (plot) number, mouza(specific area), name of raiyat(tenant with right to hold land) and rakaba(area of the land in possession by the tenant, acreage). Precisely speaking, Khatiyani land refers to ancestral immovable property.
Anyhow, the efforts to digitize lands and map of the lands in state through Special Land Survey are praiseworthy. This is more so because measures taken to minimize the ever increasing land disputes in the state would pave the way for farmers to work with renewed energy—-as of now their time and energies being wasted on unwarranted litigations—-for enhancing agricultural productivity in their lands.
Last but not the least, all stakeholders related to agricultural lands would do well to remember that in India, agriculture contributes 18 percent growth to GDP.
