Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme

Why is in news? President of India to present the “Bhoomi Samman” 2023 on 18th July, 2023

The President of India will present the “Bhoomi Samman” 2023 on 18th July, 2023 to 9 State Secretaries and 68 District Collectors along with their teams who have excelled in achieving saturation of the core components of Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP) – the core of Governance.

The Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj stated that this event is extremely significant for Revenue and Registration functionaries of the State who would receive the “Bhoomi Samman” for the first time in the last 75 years for their outstanding performance. This would be the landmark year for institutionalizing the “Bhoomi Samman”.

The “Bhoomi Samman” Scheme is a fine example of Centre-State cooperative federalism based on trust and partnership, as the grading system is largely based on reports and inputs of the States/UTs in the core components of computerization and digitization of land records.

The digitization process of land records and registration will help mitigate the huge pendency of court cases involving land disputes cutting down the GDP loss to the country’s economy due to projects being stalled over litigation involving land disputes.

He emphasized that land records related information can be very useful and effective for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of various services and benefits of the programmes of Central and State Government Departments like Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, Chemical and Fertilizer, Public Distribution System (PDS), Panchayati Raj and Financial Institutions, etc.

The effectiveness in delivery of services to aforesaid Departments /Agencies / Ministries depends upon the uniformity, inter-operability, compatibility for sharing of land records related information among different stakeholders.

The Department of Land Resources has achieved 94% digitization targets pan-India and is resolutely targeting to achieve 100% saturation of the core components of digitization of land records in all the Districts of the country by 31st March 2024.

Background:

Prime Minister had envisioned in the Post-Budget Webinar on 23rd February 2022 that all public welfare schemes should saturate the scheme components with the objective that no citizen is left behind.

The Department had initiated performance based grading in six core components of DILRMP.

The grading has been done on the basis of performance of Districts as reflected in Management Information System (MIS) of DILRMP and as reported by the State/UT Governments.

Platinum Grading is given to the Districts which have completed saturation i.e. 100% targets in the respective core components of DILRMP.

The 9 State Secretaries and 68 District Collectors of the aforesaid Districts will be presented with “Bhoomi Samman” recognizing their efforts in achieving outstanding performance as above.

Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme:

It is a Central Sector scheme that has been extended to 2023-24, to complete its original targets as well as expand its ambit with a slew of new schemes.

In 2008, two schemes viz, Computerisation of Land Records (CLR) and Strengthening of Revenue Administration and Updating of Land Records (SRA&ULR) were merged into a modified scheme named DILRMP.

It is implemented by the Department of Land Resources under the Ministry of Rural Development.

The DILRMP has 3 major components - (a) Computerization of land record (b) Survey/re-survey (c) Computerization of Registration.

It attempts to build upon the commonalities that exist in the arena of land records in various States to develop an appropriate Integrated Land Information Management System (ILIMS) across the country, on which different States can also add State-specific needs as they may deem relevant and appropriate.

The system contains information on parcel ownership, land use, taxation, location boundaries, land value, encumbrances and many more.