Linking welfare distribution to land records in India: Part 1

by Diya Uday and Bhargavi Zaveri.

Over a year ago, the Union Government announced the PM-KISAN scheme, which is the first centrally sponsored scheme for making direct benefit transfers to farmers. The scheme, which promises an annual transfer of Rs. 6,000 to farmers, is in line with the trend towards substituting in-kind subsidies with direct benefit transfers (DBTs) in welfare programs in India.

For example, in 2018-19, Rs. 2 trillion (around 8% of total government expenditure) was reportedly delivered through DBTs to beneficiary accounts. In the last two years alone, at least four state governments have rolled out DBTs for providing direct income support for farmers (Table 1).

Table 1: Agricultural income support schemes (2018-19)

	Union	Telangana	Andhra Pradesh	Odisha	West Bengal
Name of scheme	PM Kisan	Rythu Bandhu	Rythu Barosa	Kalia	Krishak Bandhu
Year of announcement	2019	2018	2019	2018	2018
Basis of calculation	Absolute	Per acre	Absolute	Absolute	Per acre
Annual amount	6000	10000	7500	4000	5,000
No. of instalments	3	2	2	2	2
Eligibility	Landowners	Landowners	Landowners/tenants	Landowners/tenants	Unclear
Annual budget allocation (INR crores)	75,000	12,000	8,750	5,611	3,000
Intended no. of farmers (in Mn)	120 (households)	6 farmers	4 farmers	7.5 households	7.2 farmers

Source: These features are extracted from the scheme documents available in public domain as on January 2020.

A common theme that runs across these agricultural income support schemes is that they utilise land records. India has had a checkered history in the field of land record administration and welfare distribution. For example, a previous attempt at linking the fertiliser subsidy to digitised land records has reportedly failed. The variation in the quality of land records across states, and of state capacity for the identification of beneficiaries, will affect the working of such schemes. We may anticipate problems such as the time-lags involved in the updation of records, the area of the land parcel where the subsidy is linked to the size of the land and the identification of possessory interests such as renters and share-croppers. For example, a ground truth study conducted across Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, showed substantial lags in the updation of land records on account of a change in ownership (NCAER 2017). In Maharashtra, for instance, it took an average of 85 days to update the revenue records to reflect a change in the ownership of a land parcel on account of a sale transaction, and 110 days to reflect such a change on account of the death of the original owner (IGIDR 2017).

The implementation of such schemes is complicated by the fact that while the land records are generally maintained by the Revenue Department of the state government, the Agriculture Department is responsible for the implementation of the income support scheme. The efficacy of such schemes would thus depend on the extent to which these departments are able to collaborate.

A new study on the Rythu Bandhu scheme in Telangana

Telangana is an interesting place to study the implementation of an agriculture income support scheme delivered through DBT by entirely relying on land records. This is because unlike the other states that have rolled out similar schemes, the state government of Telangana, before rolling out the Rythu Bandhu scheme (RBS), undertook a state-wide land records updation drive. Referred to as the Land Records Updation Program (LRUP), the drive involved officers of the Revenue Department visiting each village for rectifying errors, updating the land records and issuing a new de-facto land record, referred to as Pattadar Passbooks, to the owners of agricultural land parcels.

While some have acclaimed the RBS as a success story for providing relief to farmers and innovating in the space of agriculture support (here and here), the scheme has been equally criticised for excluding landless and tenant farmers from its purview.

These developments bring up many interesting questions:

• How was the LRUP done?
• To what extent did it contribute towards the design and the implementation of the RBS?
• What are the co-ordination and information sharing mechanisms set up between the Revenue and Agriculture Departments?
• Has the reliance on land records for the identification of beneficiaries resulted in exclusion and inclusion errors? What is the extent of such errors? 
• What is the impact of linking the entitlement under the RBS to the size of the land parcel?

Answering these questions will help in understanding the state capacity required for conducting a state-wide land records updation drive, the problems that arise in linking land records to welfare distribution, and the design and operationalisation of DBTs which use land records for the purpose of identification of beneficiaries.

We investigated these questions through a series of interviews, focus group discussions and matching of land records with beneficiary databases in Telangana, over a period of six months. In a two part series of articles here on The Leap Blog, we unveil our key findings. A more detailed version of this work is visible in Thomas et. al., 2020.

In this first part, we describe how the Telangana government undertook a state-wide land records updation program, the outcomes of the updation program and its potential impact on the identification of beneficiaries under the Rythu Bandhu scheme. The LRUP, which primarily aimed to cover agricultural land, achieved fairly large coverage in terms of area (86%). All districts, except Hyderabad (which does not comprise agricultural land) were covered under the LRUP. The number of disputed land parcels was surprisingly low (~5%), and a fresh revised digital land record could be issued to ~93% of the land parcels that were covered and undisputed.

We argue that the scale and efficiency of the LRUP and the rate of disputed land parcels, is attributable to two factors: the lack of a survey that measures the boundaries of land parcels; and restricting the nature of rights and interests in the updated digital land record. We further argue that these constraints have influenced the design and scope of the RBS, restricting its benefits to land owners, and excluding tenants and share-croppers whose interests are no longer recorded on the land record used for the identification of RBS beneficiaries.

In the next article, we will look at the implementation of the RBS, the payment mechanisms used, the overall satisfaction levels and the extent of errors in the identification of beneficiaries under the RBS.

Our study supplements theoretical perspectives on state capacity in India, generates fresh insights into the kind and quantum of capacity required for the upgradation of land records, a probem that is believed to be a significant challenge to India's development. It also contributes to the literature on state capacity and welfare programs in India (Muralidharan et al (2016); Totapally et al (2019)).

Our study involved interviews with government officials of departments of the State Government which were involved in the implementation of the LRUP and the RBS, namely, the Revenue Department, the Agriculture Department and the Finance Department. We interviewed officials of these Departments at the level of the state, two sample districts and sample villages in each of these districts respectively. Additionally, we interviewed officials of the Finance Department and the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), which is the department within the government responsible for the delivery of services to tribal communities in scheduled tribal areas.

The districts of Nalgonda and Mulugu were selected as sample districts for the study, owing to the concentration of a large number of small and marginal landholdings and the population of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in these districts. To obtain insights into the overall satisfaction levels with the RBS, we conducted focus group discussions with beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries in the two selected villages in these districts. Finally, for the purpose of estimating the extent of errors, if any, in the coverage of beneficiaries under the RBS, we compared the base land records in each of these villages with the RBS beneficiaries lists.

Scope of the LRUP and capacity deployed

The LRUP was envisaged as a three month exercise to improve land records in respect of agricultural land in Telangana through two phases:

1. First phase : This phase covered (a) land parcels with no disputes and (b) land parcels where there were undisputed errors on the records, such as errors of names and surnames.
2. Second phase: The second phase was designed to cover disputed land parcels, such as land parcels in respect of which disputes are pending in the revenue or civil courts, or land parcels that belonged to a Wakf (land belonging to a religious charity and administered by a statutory board) or had boundary disputes with the Forest Department. The key here was that there was a finite list of categories of "disputes" that were identified by the State Government for the purpose of excluding land parcels from Phase 1.

Table 2 gives an overview of the coverage of the LRUP. It shows that except for one district, namely, Hyderabad, which has no agricultural land, the LRUP covered all the districts aggregating to 86% of the area of the state.

Table 2: Coverage under the LRUP

Unit	Coverage	Total	Coverage (%)
Districts	32	33	96.77
Mandals	573	584	97.26
Revenue Villages	10,823	10,343*	Unclear
Area (in acres)	2,38,18,551	2,76,94,830	86
Source: Revenue Department (June 2019) *As per Census 2011.

The coverage indicated in Table 2 was achieved in three months, with the Revenue Department officers having been divided into teams led by the Tehsildar (an official of the Revenue Department in charge of a cluster of villages). The Collector of each district was responsible for the formation of appropriately sized teams for the district, with the mandate of covering 250 acres per day per team. Table 3 gives an overview of the resources deployed for the purpose of the LRUP.

Table 3: Overview of resources deployed for the LRUP

Duration of the project	15th September, 2017-31st December, 2017
Total number of revenue officers involved in the project	3,500
No. of teams	1,507
No. of villages assigned to each team	9
Estimated area to be covered per day	250 acres per team
Estimated No. of days per village	10
Estimated No. of days per district	100
Source: MCR Human Resource Development Institute of Telangana and interviews.

We find that four distinct records are maintained at the level of the village (Table 3a) and the village-level exercise involved updating one of the records, namely, the Record of Rights and the issuance of digital Pattadar Passbooks (explained below) to each land owner.

Table 3a: Overview of land records maintained at the village level

Sethwar	A record containing details of cultivable area on each agricultural land parcel.
Khasra Pahani	A record containing the details of crops on each agricultural parcel of land.
Pahani	A record containing parcel-level information on the ownership, non-ownership interests, area, cultivable and non-cultivable portions, cropping patterns on each agricultural land parcel.
Record of Right (Form 1B)	A record containing a sub-set of the information from the Pahani records, with a focus on the ownership, area, manner of acquisition of each agricultural land parcel
Pattadar Passbook	A record containing information on the ownership of the land parcel.

Each team was part of a training conducted by the District Collectors on (a) the objectives of the exercise; (b) step by step processes involved in the exercise; (c) the formats for the collection of information; (d) the statutory processes to be followed for the correction and modification of the records; and (d) the daily progress reports to be sent to district and state. A state level control room and multiple district-level control rooms were set up to deal with questions that cropped up during the exercise. The reporting heirarchy was clear. The Tehsildars would prepare daily reports for the District Collector, who in turn, was responsible for compiling the village-wise reports in her District. Each report contains information on (a) the details of missing serial numbers for entry in the the Pahani; (b) the extent of variation in the area of the land parcel reflected in the Sethwar and the Pahani; (c) unsettled disputes and issues in the village; (d) details of the land assigned by the government; and (e) list of land parcels put to non-agricultural use in the village.

Budget deployed for the LRUP

An analysis of the financial statements of the Telangana Government shows that while the budget does not separately allocate funds for the LRUP, there is a significant increase in the budget allocation for overall 'land reforms' for the year of implementation of the LRUP, namely, financial year 2017-18 and the financial year 2018-19 (Table 4). In the absence of specific information on the extent to which this allocation was utilised for the LRUP, it is difficult to draw any insights. However, our interviews yielded more specific, although rough, information on the amounts spent for the implementation of the LRUP (Table 4a).

Table 4: Overview of budget estimates for land reform in rural areas (2015-2020)

Financial year	Budget estimate (INR lakhs)	Year-on-year change (%)
2015-16	1363.03*
2016-17	1256.56	-7
2017-18	1335.85	6.31
2018-19	1502.20	12.45
2019-20	1506.18	0.26
Source: Annual Financial Statements. *This is the actual amount spent on land reforms in 2015-16.

Table 4a: Budget estimates for implementation of the LRUP

Aggregate budget (INR crores)	100
Amount used for printing Digital Pattadar Passbooks	40-60
Amount allocated per district for title verification, etc.	1-2
Source: Interviews conducted with state government officials (June 2019)

Table 4a shows that a blanket amount of Rs. 1-2 crores was allocated per district for the process of conducting the title verification, and the overall implementation of the LRUP. This was in addition to the regular budget of the Revenue Department. The allocation was uniform across all districts without regard to their size or other factors which might complicate the implementation further such as fragmented land parcels and vast forest areas. In the absence of district-level data on the usage of these additional funds, it is difficult to ascertain the sufficiency of these amounts or the extent to which a uniform allocation poses problems for the larger or more complex districts.

Digital Pattadar Passbooks

One of the key components of the LRUP was the issuance of digital Pattadar Passbooks (PPBs) to all the owners of agricultural land whose land was found to be undisputed during the LRUP. The PPB is a land record unique to the erstwhile unified state of Andhra Pradesh. Originally, it recorded the interests of owners, Pattadars (defined, under the land revenue laws, as the person who pays the land revenue), mortgagees, and tenants on the land parcel. The purpose of this document was to facilitate farmers' access to credit. For example, the AP Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971 allows farmers to apply for credit on the basis of the passbook; and empowers the Collector to recover, on behalf of the lender, an unpaid loan obtained on the basis of the passbook.

The State of Telangana adopted the AP Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971 and renamed it as the Telangana Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971. In 2018, Telangana made two critical amendments to the Telangana Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971: first, it dispensed with recording the interests of tenants and occupants who are not owners on the PPBs. The reason for this is unclear. However, the current law governing agricultural land tenancies in Telangana, which confers superior rights to protected tenants (namely, tenancies created in 1950) reportedly led to insecurity among owners of agricultural land parcels. It is possible that this was the motivation for restricting the set of rights that were recognised in Pattadar Passbooks.

Second, it specifically provided that loans could be made on the basis of the electronic record of rights, and that the production of the PPB should not be insisted upon for advancing a loan on the security of land, the interest of the owner in land or the crops growing on it (Table 5).

Table 5: Recording of interests in Pattadar Passbooks: pre and post 2018 amendment

	Pre-2018	Post 2018
Pattadar	Yes	Yes
Mortgagee	Yes	No
Tenant	Yes	No

The non-inclusion of tenancies and other interests in the PPB is an important amendment as it ultimately affects the identification of beneficiaries under the RBS.

Disputes uncovered in Phase 1 of the LRUP

Contrary to the popular notion of land being a highly disputed area, nearly 95% of the area covered under the LRUP was cleared as free of disputes related to ownership during the first phase (Table 6).

Table 6: State-level outcomes under the LRUP

LRUP outcomes: in acres and gunthas
Total extent verified	2,38,53,248.36
Total extent clear	2,28,77,333 (94.65)
Total extent not clear	9,75,915.34 (4.09)
LRUP outcomes: in number of land parcels
No. of Survey Nos. verified	1,96,78,844
No. of Survey Nos. cleared	1,87,60,272 (95.33)
No. of Survey Nos. not cleared	9,18,572 (4.66)
Total No. of Khatas covered	71,71,409
Total No. of cleared Khatas	67,68,151 (94.37)
Agricultural Khatas	60,00,509
Non-agricultural and govt. assets	7,67,642
Total No. of Khatas not cleared	4,03,258 (5.62)
Source: Revenue Department, Government of Telangana. Numbers in brackets are percentages of the total of the head under which they appear.

It is possible that the speed of implementation of the LRUP, the coverage and the high clearance rate is attributable to the manner in which the verification process was conducted. Since the LRUP was not preceded by a survey, the entries in the land records with respect to the area and parcel boundaries, were verified on a self-declaration basis. In the article that follows this one, we demonstrate the discrepancies in the area recorded in the base land records and the Rythu Bandhu beneficiary lists. Second, the LRUP involved the updation of a limited number of fields of information in a PPB. As mentioned above, interests other than ownership were not recorded in the revised PPBs. Since interests such as tenancy and possession, which are inherently more difficult to record, were not within the scope of the program, this might have contributed to the wide coverage, low disputes and speed of implementation of the program.

The design of the LRUP and its bifurcation into two phases has important implications for the scale that the program could achieve. As mentioned above, all disputed land parcels were kept out of the purview of the first phase. Thus, for instance, land parcels with respect to which cases are pending in the civil courts or revenue courts or were subject to succession disputes, were kept for Phase 2 of the LRUP. This ensured that digital PPBs could be issued in respect of the bulk of the land parcels (93%) that were cleared of ownership related disputes under the LRUP (Table 7).

Table 7: Number of digital Pattadar Passbooks issued under the LRUP
No. of cleared agricultural Khatas	60,00,509
No. of PPBs issued	55,85,396 (93.08)
No. of Khatas cleared for PPBs, but not yet digitally signed	4,15,113 (6.91)
AADHAAR is available	1,65,055
AADHAAR is not available	2,50,058
Source: Revenue Department, Government of Telangana (June 2019). Nos. in brackets are percentages of the total of the head under which they appear.

Conclusion

The LRUP was envisaged as a speedy and one-time state-wide intervention for the updation of land records and the issuance of updated digital Pattadar Passbooks in Telangana. While the scale and the speed of the program holds important lessons on the importance of planning and capacity, the design and implementation of the program have several unintended consequences affecting the utility of land records generally and the design of the RBS more specifically.

Our study reinforces the notion of the multiplicity of land records at the village level. The ubiquity of the digital Pattadar Passbooks has made them a de-facto land record for ascertaining claims to ownership in Telangana, although their original purpose was restricted to allowing easier access to agriculture credit on the security of the underlying land and crops grown on it. As demonstrated in Table 3a, information about an agricultural land parcel is now spread across the base land records - such as the Pahaani records and the record of rights - which are usually maintained in all states under the respective land revenue laws, and the digital Pattadar Passbooks. This increases the potential for inconsistency in the information across different land records, even as the records are maintained by the same department of the State Government. Given the large-scale digitisation of base land records in Telangana, and the relative ease with which they can be accessed by citizens through digital portals such as MeeSewa, the need to overlay these records with a new land record in the form of Pattadar Passbooks, remains questionable.

Second, the LRUP was not preceded by a state-wide survey. The design of the program restricting the kinds of interests required to be recorded in the updated digital Pattadar Passbooks allowed the program to proceed with relatively higher speed. Counter-intuitively, the level of disputed agricultural land parcels was relatively lower than one might have estimated. However, this seems to be in line with a previous study that sought to investigate the degree of concordance between information recorded in digital land records and reality in Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. The survey found relatively high concordance on ownership between the digital land records and reality. For instance, the study in Maharashtra found that out of the 102 samples land parcels examined across two villages in Maharashtra, 101 of them were owned by the person reflected in the digitised land record. However, the study found higher discrepancies in recording encumbrances and the area of the land parcel as reflected in the digitised land record and the actual area occupied in reality.

In short, the LRUP could achieve this scale within such a short span of time due to the simplification and minimisation of information that was required to be recorded in the Pattadar Passbooks. However, even as the discourse on the formalisation of land records leans towards widening the range of information recorded in land records, the measure of creating a new digital land title record with a restricted set of information would have the unintended consequence of the record being of limited utility.

Finally, the failure to record interests such as tenancy and mortgages on the digital Pattadar Passbooks, might have influenced the design of the Rythu Bandhu scheme. Reliance on the digital Pattadar Passbooks for the identification of beneficiaries leads to exclusion of landless farmers, such as tenants and share croppers, who are cultivating land and incurring expenditure as tenants. To ensure that the agriculture income support is beneficial, the design of the land record that is used as the base for the identification of beneficiaries, is critical. If the land record records interests such as tenancy and occupancy, it is easier to include tenants and actual cultivators within the ambit of the DBT scheme thereby ensuring that the intended benefits under such schemes reach the tiller of the land.

References

Sanand, Gupta and Prabhakar. A Pilot Impact Assessment of the Digital-India Land Records Modernisation Programme, NCAER (2017).

Narayanan et al. Report on the implementation of the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP) in the state of Maharashtra, IGIDR (2017).

Muralidharan, Karthik, Paul Niehaus, and Sandip Sukhtankar. 2016. Building State Capacity: Evidence from Biometric Smartcards in India. American Economic Review, 106 (10):2895-2929.

Swetha Totapally, Petra Sonderegger, Priti Rao, Jasper Gosselt, Gaurav Gupta. State of Aadhaar Report 2019. Dalberg, 2019.

Thomas, Uday and Zaveri. Linking welfare distribution to land records: a case-study of the Rythu Bandhu Scheme (RBS) in Telangana, IGIDR (2020).





Diya Uday and Bhargavi Zaveri are researchers at the Finance
Research Group, Mumbai. The study was supported by the Omidyar Network India.

Rethinking urban land records: A case study of Mumbai

by Gausia Shaikh and Diya Uday.

Introduction

A well functioning market is identified by the ease of doing business. This connotes both the ease in conducting transactions as well as low transaction costs. Ease of doing business in any market is inhibited by the lack of adequate information about the traded good. Land markets are no different.

In fact, they pose unique challenges that contribute to information asymmetry. Firstly, land is not a homogeneous product. Each parcel is unique with a particular set of locational and physical attributes (Catherine Farvacque, 1992). In addition to this, each land parcel also carries with it unique rights and obligations of which a typical buyer has little knowledge. Secondly, in India, land is a State subject under the Constitution. From a governance perspective, it means that the legal and organisational framework pertaining to land is determined by each State. For instance, land records in Maharashtra are maintained under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966 while the equivalent legislation in Rajasthan is the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956. Therefore, the range of information on land parcels maintained by each State is not necessarily uniform.

A purchaser is therefore compelled to bear high transaction costs both in terms of money and time to obtain information about the land parcel. This is done by conducting a due diligence of the title to the land parcel. It involves the painstaking process of first obtaining all relevant records pertaining to a parcel of land from various government departments and then reviewing the information to ascertain the rights and obligations that flow from it. Often these records are missing crucial information that will affect a purchaser's buy decision. Even when information is available, the insufficiency of information related to a land parcel in a consolidated manner is a cause for concern. Buyers therefore tend to rely on information contained in contracts pertaining to the land as a source of information. Further, purchasers also feel the need to publish a notification of their intent to buy the land parcel in local newspapers, for good measure.

In this article, we first set out the various types of cadastres. We then highlight the policy of countries to move away from maintaining fiscal cadastres. We analyse the position in India and highlight the need to move towards multi-purpose cadastres. We support this with a case study on urban cadastres in Mumbai.

The shift away from fiscal cadastres

The contents of cadastres are motivated by the purpose for which they are created. Globally, there are three types of cadastres:

• Fiscal: These are designed for property tax purposes and contain information like the identification of the land owner(s), value of the land and description of the land parcel.
• Legal or juridical: These are designed to record ownership, legal interests in land and conveyancing matters.
• Multi-purpose: Apart from the information mentioned in the fiscal and legal cadastres, these include a wide range of spatial and non-spatial information that support land registration, land markets, socio-economic activities and land use management (Mukarage, 2016).

Historically, in countries governed by feudal agrarian systems such as India, political, economic and social success was largely judged by the extent of land and the effectiveness of revenue collection. Land taxes were an important source of revenue of the State (Powell, 1892). Therefore, the earliest forms of land records or cadastres were fiscal records.

With increased complexity of the land market, countries such as Switzerland have tended to shift from fiscal to multi-purpose cadastres. In fact a cadastre itself is now defined as "A parcel based, and up-to-date land information system containing a record of interests in land (e.g. rights, restrictions and responsibilities). It usually includes a geometric description of land parcels linked to other records describing the nature of the interests, the ownership or control of those interests, and often the value of the parcel and its improvements." (International Federation of Surveyors (FIG)). Simply, this means a multi-purpose cadastre.

In India, land record reform has been central to policy discourse. Centrally Sponsored Schemes such as the Computerisation of Land Records (CLR) & the Strengthening of Revenue Administration and Updating of Land Records (SRA&ULR) were issued as an attempt at curing information asymmetry as a means to maintaining better land records. In 2008, these schemes were modified into the Digital India Land Record Modernisation Programme (DI-LRMP) the three major components of which are (i) computerisation of land record (ii) survey/re-survey and (iii) computerisation of registration.

While these initiatives are steps towards ensuring the accuracy of the information contained in existing records and ease of access to the records, there has been a lack of focus on the adequacy of the information captured in existing records. This could be attributed to the fact that even today, the primary purpose of recording information about land parcels is land revenue collection. In the following section we make a case for moving towards a multi-purpose cadastres. We do this by analysing existing urban records in Mumbai.

A case study of urban cadastres in Mumbai

The cadastral system in Maharashtra consists of two major elements: a Cadastral Map (CM) and a Record of Rights (ROR) linked to each land parcel. There are two types of RORs in Maharashtra: the 7/12 extract, which is used in peri-urban and rural areas and a property rights card (PRC), which is used in urban areas.

For revenue purposes, urban areas in Mumbai are divided into two regions: Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban regions. Each of these regions consists of multiple divisions. All land parcels in these divisions are identified by survey numbers. Information about the land parcel represented by each survey number is recorded in an urban cadastre or PRC. We conducted a case study of these urban cadastres in Mumbai. We do so with two main objectives. First, to verify if the existing cadastres are in line with the legal framework governing such cadastres. Second, to analyse whether the information being recorded is sufficient to enable a sound buy-sell decision.

Methodology - We first randomly picked five area divisions from each Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban (sample divisions). This was done from the drop down list of divisions available on the website of the Mumbai City Collectorate (MCC) and the website of the Mumbai Suburban District, respectively. The five divisions we selected from Mumbai City were (i) Colaba, (ii) Byculla, (iii) Girgaon and (iv) Mazgoan (v) Sion. The five divisions selected from Mumbai Suburban were (i) Mulund, (ii) Kurla, (iii) Bandra, (iv) Andheri and (v) Malad.We then selected one of our sample divisions from the drop down list on each of these websites. After this, we entered a random survey number to generate a PRC for a parcel of land. This was repeated thrice for each sample division, in both Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban in order to access PRCs for three separate land parcels within each sample division. Our total number of observations were therefore 30 PRCs (15 for Mumbai City and 15 for Mumbai Suburban). Our findings are set out below.

Findings - In each case above, we examined the heads of information to be entered in the PRC under the following themes:

1. Information to be maintained under the Maharashtra Land Revenue (Village, Town and City Survey) Rules, 1969 (Rules) - The Rules set out the fields of information required to be recorded in the PRC. This information can be classified into three main themes. First, property identification which includes details such as the cadastral survey number, location of the property and the name of the division in which the property is situated. Second, assessment information which includes information such as the collector's number, the collector's rent roll number and ground rent due to the government. Third, holder's history which has details of the holders of the property.
   

   We find that not all the fields of information required to be recorded in the PRC by law are in fact recorded. In addition to not recording this information, the template of a PRC does not even have allocated sections to record this information. A summary of our findings is set out in Table 1. Table 1 sets out our findings on whether PRCs have a provision/place holder to record all information mandated to be recorded under the Rules.

   Table 1: Information to be compulsorily recorded

   S.No.	Information to be recorded	Whether provision to record (Mumbai City)	Whether provision to record (Mumbai Suburban)
   1.	Survey number	Yes	Yes
   2.	Area	Yes	Yes
   3.	Tenure	Yes	Yes
   4.	Particulars of assessment or rent paid to the government	No	Yes
   5.	Particulars of when the assessment or rent paid to the government is due for revision	No	Yes
   6.	Easements	No	Yes
   7.	Holder in origin of the title, so far as traced	Yes	Yes
   8.	Other remarks	No	Yes
   9.	Date	No	No
   10.	Transaction volume number	No	No
   11.	New holder	Yes	Yes
   12.	Attesting lessee	No	Yes
   13.	Encumbrances	No	Yes

   
   
2. Information which would aid a sound buy-sell decision - To ascertain the ideal fields of information which should be recorded to aid an efficient buy-sell decision, we have relied on the definition of a cadastre set out by the FIG, referred to above. We have accordingly classified the information into three broad heads:
   
   
   1. Recording of interests in the land: Under this head, the FIG includes recording of rights, responsibilities and restrictions. Under each head we list relevant fields of information in the context of the Indian market. For example there is no provision to record possession rights in the PRC.
   2. Map and description of boundaries: Currently, the boundaries of the parcel are not recorded in the PRC. A person looking at a PRC has no way of knowing where the parcel of land is in fact situated. In modern cadastres, the boundaries are set and described using the latitude and longitude description of the land parcel. Further, in Mumbai, the CM in respect of a parcel of land is not available as part of the PRC. Neither is a copy of the CM available online. In order to obtain a copy at present, a purchaser or parcel holder is required to make a physical application to the Survey and Settlement Department.
   3. Valuation and improvements: Currently, property rates are available in the ready reckoner, which is a government issued booklet on area wise property prices. For the purpose of determining the fair market value of the land, the ready reckoner takes into consideration not only the location of the land but also the buildings on the land. This information is currently not recorded in the PRC. Similarly, the other factors that affect the valuation of the land such as development potential or the floor space index (FSI) available in respect of the parcel of land and its proximity to roads are also not recorded. This information is important as it directly affects the economic value of the land and is likely to affect a decision to transact in a parcel of land.

   In Table 2 we set out a list of desired fields of information and analyse whether or not these are captured in the PRCs for sample divisions.

   Table 2: Information required to aid a sound buy-sell decision

   S.No.	Information	Whether provision to record (Mumbai City)	Whether provision to record (Mumbai Suburban)
   A.	Record of interest in the land
   	1. Rights
   	(i) Ownership	Yes	Yes
   	(ii) Possession	No	No
   	(iii) Easement	No	Yes
   	2. Responsibilities
   	(i) Payment of taxes	Yes	Yes
   	3. Restrictions
   	(i) Charges	No	Yes
   	(ii) Disputes	No	No
   	(iii) Restrictive covenants	No	No
   B.	Maps and boundaries	No	No
   C.	Valuation and improvements
   	(i) Structures on the land	No	No
   	(ii) FSI	No	No
   	(iii) Transferable development rights	No	No

Miscellaneous observations

Our case study also revealed several inconsistencies and deficiencies in the information recorded in the PRC. Some of our observations are as follows:

1. Lack of uniformity: We have observed that the templates of PRCs in Mumbai Suburban and Mumbai City differ. This means that even the fields of information captured in PRCs within Mumbai differ based on where the parcel of land is located. For instance, the PRC of a parcel of land in Mumbai City does not have a provision to record easements on the land whereas the PRC for a parcel of land located in Mumbai Suburban does.
2. Poor recording: The PRCs in Mumbai Suburban region revealed that, even though there is a provision for recording the information mandated under the Rules, such information was not always recorded under the specific provision. For instance, in 7 out of 15 cases, we observed that easementary rights were not recorded. Similarly in case of encumbrances and attesting lessees we observed that in 6 cases, respectively, this information was not recorded. In fact the PRC of one parcel of land only recorded 2 out of 13 fields of information i.e. survey number and particulars of rent.
   
   In addition to not having the required fields, the PRCs in Mumbai City did not even record information for the existing fields.
   
3. Ambiguity in recorded information: We observed that there is lack of uniformity in the manner in which information is recorded. For instance where there is no information to be recorded in a given field, this is recored as "nil" in Mumbai City and a "-" in Mumbai Suburban. For instance the sample revealed that in Mumbai Suburban 8 out of 15 PRCs recorded "-" in the field for easements. Further in some cases the field is left empty leaving it to the reader to infer whether this is a mistake on the part of the recording officer or a there is no information to record.
   

   We also observed that in some cases of PRCs in Mumbai City, where there is no specific field for recording certain information, the information is recorded under a different head. For instance, "attestting lessees" are recorded in the ownership column in PRCs (with the mention that they are attesting lessees). The problem with this is that where there is no lessee, there is no information stating clearly that there is no lessee on the land. Again, it is left to the interpretation of the reader to decide whether there is no lessee or there is in fact a lessee and this information has not been recorded.

Recommendations

Our study reveals that the PRC as a cadastre in Mumbai, is far from being an ideal record. The new policy objective ought to be the creation of greater information symmetry in the land market to enable informed and intelligent buy or sell decisions. Based on our case study, we suggest the following:

1. Recording information mandated under the law: Our findings (Table 1) reveal that the current format of PRCs in Mumbai City does not have the provision to record certain heads of information that are mandated under the law. As a first step, authorities must ensure that the format of the PRC is in consonance with that set out under the law.
2. Increasing the scope of information recorded in a PRC: Our analysis of the PRC has revealed that the information recorded in the PRC is far from adequate for making an informed buy or sell decision. The scope of information recorded in the PRC must be increased to include relevant information such as disputes in relation to the land, mortgages and the development potential of the land as set out in Table 2.
3. Adopting uniformity in recording information: It is recommended that uniform practices of recording information be adopted. For instance, where there is no information to be recorded, it must be depicted by "nil" only and must not be left empty or be represented wth "-". Similarly, information must be recorded under the appropriate head in the template.
4. Moving towards a multi-purpose cadastre: The State of Maharashtra still maintains PRCs for the primary purpose of collection of revenue, as is evident from the property details currently recorded in the PRC. The growth of investment in real estate has led to a point where maintenance of a multi-purpose cadastre is the need of the hour for two reasons. First to ensure that all information pertaining to a land parcel is available in a consolidated manner at a single source. Second, to ensure that buyers are presented with all relevant information about the land parcel. This maybe achieved through the integration of databases maintained by relevant authorities. For instance, orders passed by civil courts, tribunals and other quasi-judicial institutions affect interests in a land parcel. For a complete, accurate and up-to-date picture of the interests appurtenant to the land parcel, it is essential that the outcome of such orders is immediately notified to the City Survey office. Further, pendency of proceedings before judicial and quasi-judicial bodies or lis pendens also has ramifications on the rights and interests to a land parcel. It is therefore advisable that such judicial and quasi-judicial bodies automatically update PRCs to reflect such encumbrances.
5. Integrating textual and spatial records: As a step towards achieving multi-purpose cadastres, we recommend that CMs and PRCs be integrated to form a single record. As of today, the CMs and PRCs are maintained by different offices. The aim again is to consolidate all relevant information about a land parcel in one document. For instance, this would mean that every time a land is sub-divided and a new map is drawn for the land parcel, it must become part of the PRC.

References

1. Badarinza, Balasubramaniam and Ramadorai, The Indian Household Savings Landscape, 2017.
2. Farvacque and McAuslan, Reforming urban land policies and institutions in developing countries, 1992.
3. Constitution of India, 1950.
4. Dale and Mclaughlin, Land Information Management, An introduction with special reference to cadastral problems in Third World countries, 2000.
5. Department of Land Resources, The National Land Records Modernisation Programme (NLRMP) Guidelines, Technical Manuals and MIS, 2008-2009.
6. Ministry of Urban Development, Draft model guidelines for urban land policy, 2007.
7. Expert Committee, Government of India, Land titling - A road map, 2014.
8. Federation Internationale des Geometres, FIG Statement on the Cadastre, 1995.
9. Mukarage, Investigating the contribution of land records on property taxation: a case study of Huye District, Rwanda, 2016.
10. Powell, Land systems of British India, 1892.

 

Gausia Shaikh and Diya Uday are researchers at IGIDR.