Thiruvananthapuram: Disputes over land ownership and area could become a thing of the past as Revenue Department of the Kerala government digitise its records further. The efforts in this direction will get a further boost as survey maps are set to be linked to land registration documents stored in the electronic format.
As of now, the Pearl software of the Registration Department and the Revenue Land Information System (ReLIS) have been linked. Steps will be taken to link the records of the Survey Department too. (ReLIS is a web-based application that facilitates mutation and management of land records.)
In the first phase, the land records at Vanchiyoor in Thiruvananthapuram district and Kaduthuruthy in Kottayam district would be upgraded. For this, details will be collected through a digital survey in both the villages and linked to the Bhu-Naksha (a cadastral mapping software). It would take six to eight months to complete the procedure at a cost of Rs 14.6 crore.
Latest technology for resurvey
Kerala might implement the latest technology followed by states such as Andhra Pradesh to speed up the resurvey procedures that have been moving at a snail's pace in the state for several years.
The plan is to conduct a GPS survey with the help of CORS technology, which is used by the Survey of India. (CORS means Cross-Origin Resource Sharing; it is a web mechanism that allows access to restricted resources on a web page from an external domain.)
The CORS technology helps to digitally map all the buildings, roads and canals between two points separated by a distance of up to 20km.
It aids in conducting a more accurate and speedy survey than that held with the Total Station instrument that is being used currently. However, as the former is an expensive procedure, central aid would be sought. Other states were granted central funds to carry it out.
Of the 1,663 villages in the state, the resurvey has been completed in 907 villages and the digital survey was carried out only in 86 villages. For the rest of the villages, the CORS project would be implemented soon. Kasaragod, Kannur, Kozhikode and Palakkad districts have the most number of villages, where resurvey was not held so far.
National seminar
A national seminar on the modernisation of land records in various states would be held at the Muscat Hotel in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday and Thursday. The information garnered would be used for implementation in Kerala.
Representatives of the central government and those from the land resources department of various states would take part in the seminar, according to Kerala Land Revenue Commissioner C Latha and Survey Department Director V R Premkumar.
The seminar is organised by Kerala Land Records Modernisation Mission which was formed to combine the data from the survey, revenue and registration departments.
(With inputs from Schiller Stephen)