Chief Secy asks to set timeframe for land record digitisation

With the Revenue Department failing to complete the work of digitisation of the land records of Jammu and Kashmir since long, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo held a meeting on Wednesday to take assessment of the work and also asked the officials to set a definite timeframe for its completion.

Senior officials have been reviewing the pace of work on digitisation of the revenue records for the past many years but it has still not completed, which has raised many questions.

During the meeting, which was also attended by Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Principal Secretary Finance; Divisional Commissioner Jammu, Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir and Deputy Commissioners, Dulloo asked the officials to complete the digitisation programme as most of the work is shown to be completed now.

He observed that the next goal of the department should be to integrate these records with geo-referenced cadastral maps and dedicating the same to public for their ease and use.

The Chief Secretary further impressed upon the department to constitute teams of revenue experts who would visit districts to gauge the accuracy of these digitised records. He said it is pivotal to check the quality and accuracy of these records and people themselves should take lead in scrutinising their respective records for any discrepancies so that these are timely rectified.

Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Shaleen Kabra said the Department has made substantial progress in digitisation process with most of it completed by the field officials of the department except that in Jammu and Srinagar districts.

He revealed that the Department is currently engaged in the verification process to ensure quality and accuracy of these records. He said this exercise would be completed within a month’s time to enable the department to move towards integrating it with vectorised cadastral maps.

Secretary, Revenue, Kumar Rajeev Ranjan informed that the department is on the task of digitisation of cadastral maps followed by their geo-refrencing which has been completed upto the extent of 89% across villages.

It is interesting to note that former Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta had in June last year stated that 392 revenue maps (Mussavis) were missing from the records. He had asked the senior officials to fix the responsibility in the matter.