Digitisation of land records dating back to Peshwas to begin soon

The Maharashtra government will soon begin the digitising of land records, some of which date back to the era of the British and the Peshwas. These documents and maps, some of which are more than two-and-a-half centuries old, are located in tehsil, sub-divisional and district collectorate offices and are a valuable record of property ownership. But many of them are coming apart due to age and on account of exposure to the elements.

Under this project all the record rooms are to be modernised with the existing wooden racks to be replaced by compactors to protect and preserve the records.

A senior revenue department official said the project implementing committee and the high-power committee under the chief secretary had approved the plan to scan the land records. The final clearance from the revenue minister is awaited.

"Today, some of these documents are coming apart. After they are scanned and digitized information will be available at the click of a button ... otherwise it is tough to preserve these documents. Without them it will be difficult to trace the ownership of land in case of disputes or complications," the official pointed out.

Some of the records are in the Modi script (one of the older scripts used to write Marathi) which is not easy to decipher. "They must be scanned and preserved. They must also be translated, otherwise it would be difficult to understand them in the future," the official explained.

While the Modi script was used in Western Maharashtra, in Marathwada – which was part of the dominion of the Nizam of Hyderabad – it was Urdu.

The cost of the project is estimated at Rs20 crore, half of which will be borne by the state and the remainder would be paid by the Centre under the National Land Records Management programme. It is proposed to complete the work in two and a half to three years.

The work will cover all the 35 districts in phases, and the oldest records will be taken up first. Textual records are to be superimposed on maps.

"The compacting system to be used in the record rooms comprises weatherproof racks that utilize half the space used currently," the official said. A cataloging system is to be adopted to help retrieve documents easily.

In the British days, the Anderson manual laid down the type of 'rumals' (cloth) to be used to bundle the documents, depending on the length of the time for which they were to be preserved.

The 'tippan utara', which are rough survey records of the British era that may not be to scale, and village maps are admissible for claiming central grants. The state has also wants to capture the intermediary steps like sale, transfer and partition. "We need to scan and record textual records on digitised maps and diagrams," the official said.